Moments in Time
by anamatics
Summary: They were dead and then they were alive again. How does one cope with such a fact at such a young age? A story of personal growth and great love. Deals with the immediate aftermath of the Carnival and how everyone tries to cope with what happened.
1. Entre Acte

_**Moments in Time**_

_Entre Acte_

**pas·sage**1 Spelled [pas-ij] noun, verb,-saged, -sag·ing.  
noun: _A lapse or passing, as of time. _or A_ progress or course, as of events. It grows exponentially. _

_

* * *

_

They were dead.

Death was a pleasant feeling. Here there was nothing to worry about, the pressures of the previous days and weeks and years vanished in a collective sigh of relief. They could be peaceful here, lost in aloneness and in solitude.

Breath did not exist here, yet their chests heaved a heavy-hearted collective sigh of relief.

_The churning feeling in her stomach settled, and her fists released the tension in their grip. _

_She could finally pause._

It was a beautiful feeling.

Yet just as suddenly as they went softly into that goodnight, they were ripped back into reality – once more standing alone in the burned ruins of a church that their love and hatred of their situation had destroyed. Disorientation took them; they tried to come to grips with the situation. They were deaf and numb, completely and utterly alone in the world - for their world was this ruin in which they now stood.

They were once great, and now fallen angels - princesses in all but name.

She was crying, Kuga Natsuki realized dimly, sound rushing back to her ears as though someone had flicked a switch. Suddenly the world was deafening. The crackle of ashes settling in the burn-out church, the quiet sobs of the girl next to her and the high pitched whistle of the springtime wind cutting through the suddenly open space that the church formerly occupied formed a cacophony of sound around her.

_Why?_

_Why am I crying?_

She'd been happy, content to die. Why did her body insistently cling to life as though it was a gift from on high?

_Is this hell?_

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Strange, Shizuru was not speaking colloquially any more, her language was formal and concise, wracked by sobs.

_Don't cry._

Natsuki reached up to try and touch her shoulder, the ringing in her ears growing more and more intense as her fingers made contact with the soft cotton of Shizuru's school blazer. The contact brought her back, crashing down to reality with a terrified intake of breath. Her fist clenched around the fabric, squeezing Shizuru's arm and causing her to look up and meet Natsuki's blank stare with her tear-filled russet eyes.

"Hey," Natsuki started, stumbling over her words as her tongue tried to acclimate itself with being used once more. It felt thick and heavy in her mouth; she licked her lips to ensure she could speak the words before continuing. "Don't cry."

She hated it when Shizuru cried; it made her feel upset and frightened. Shizuru was the strongest person Natsuki knew, and when she was laid bare and completely raw emotionally like this, Natsuki had no idea how to react.

Shizuru flung herself at Natsuki's chest and sobbed into the dirty and stained fabric of Natsuki's undershirt. Natsuki awkwardly wrapped her arms around the sobbing girl and held her as tightly as she dared.

_Why are we back?_

_What the hell did you do, Mai?_

So many questions raced through her head, but the most important one still remained silent in response.

_What do I do now?_


	2. Act One, Scene One

_**Moments in Time**_

_Act One, Scene One  
_

**pas·sage**1 Spelled [pas-ij] noun, verb,-saged, -sag·ing.  
noun: _A lapse or passing, as of time. _or A_ progress or course, as of events. It grows exponentially. _

_

* * *

_

After all was said and done and the Obsidian Lord was vanishing into nothingness much akin to the way that they themselves had vanished, Kuga Natsuki found herself torn between the need to sleep and the need to go somewhere, anywhere, to get away from the Land of Fuuka. More specifically, she wanted to get away from Fujino Shizuru and the sense of dread that seemed to permeate the very ground upon which she now stood.

It was a toxic place, and she had to escape it.

She folded her arms across her chest and exhaled slowly, her mind still spinning from the events of the day. Mai had won - just as she'd promised. She'd gone further, wishing them back into existence from the great beyond. Natsuki was grateful for her wish - as it was the one chance that they would have for a chance to start anew. Yet, now that she was here, she had no idea what she was supposed to do.

"Natsuki?" Fujino Shizuru's voice was hoarse from shouting, from crying - from dying at Natsuki's hand. They were alone once more, safe from the questioning looks and outright hostile stares from their peers. Natsuki turned and found herself forcing a smile onto her face. She was tired, exhausted both mentally and physically, and yet the smile grew easier as she met Shizuru's gaze evenly. Her best friend – her something else – always seemed to draw this reaction from her.

It was a nice sensation.

The question was on her lips before Natsuki could really even think about the implication of what she was asking. She blurted it out, knowing that if she didn't ask now; she probably would never ask it. There were so many questions like this one that she had let go unanswered in the years that spanned their friendship – she would allow her resolve to falter just once, to earn her a response she so desperately needed. "What do we do now, Shizuru?"

Shizuru's own smile was as fake-looking as the one that Natsuki had plastered on her own face, it didn't reach her eyes. Her eyes were still as empty and dead-looking as they had been that night when Natsuki had felt her body's traitorous rebellion to Shizuru's gentle touch. The memory was enough to send her mind back to that time and place, when she had not even been sure what was real and what was a fake vision planted in her mind by an overzealous Suzushiro Haruka. What was real, anyway?

Natsuki shuddered involuntarily, remembering how easily Shizuru had cut down her friends and enemies. They had not stood a chance against her cold and business-like attack – and Natsuki could not shake the image from her head. "I would like to sleep, if that is okay with you, Natsuki."

Like a collapsing building, the bone weariness that she'd been staving off hit her. Natsuki jerked her head up and down; voicing her silent agreement that sleeping was going to be a really good idea. She tried to remember if there was a place for them to go - Nao had trashed her apartment and the dorms had been all but destroyed so they couldn't go to Shizuru's room. Neither option was particularly appealing, as they both held so many painful memories of what had happened between them. Her place was probably a better option than the rubble of the dorms, however.

Nao had left her bedroom relatively untouched – would they sleep in the same bed? Natsuki balked at the idea - she wasn't sure if she trusted Shizuru enough right now - or if she ever had. They'd done it in the past, but even then, she'd felt scared of what doing that implied. Still, the closeness that she had felt then was so comfortable, and it had put her at ease after the initial moments of awkwardness.

Yet right now, she wanted nothing to do with Shizuru. She needed to be around the sandy-haired woman, and yet right now she needed to get away, to think. There was nothing for it, and despite everything, Natsuki knew that Shizuru would not take it well if she said anything. In truth, Natsuki was scared to put that thought into words. She didn't know what Shizuru would do, and she didn't know if she could trust her to not hurt herself or someone else. Shizuru had killed so many people – and they might not have been granted a second chance. She was afraid to risk it.

It raised a question that brought a fearful grimace to Natsuki's face. What if they didn't come back? Shizuru would know if they didn't come back – they would know who made their relatives not come back from the battle of the Carnival.

_It really isn't a secret who killed them all._

A branch snapped and a voice that they both knew very well cut though their silence. It destroyed the moment so completely that Natsuki's brow twitched.

"Kuga," They turned as one, their shoulders brushing against each other before they quickly jerked away from each other. It was too soon to touch again. Natsuki knew it and she was sure that Shizuru did as well.

Still, the lack of contact hurt. The way that Shizuru had jumped away from her as though she'd been burned was a blow to her ego. She hadn't done anything wrong – yet she couldn't bear the idea that Shizuru didn't want to touch her.

_What did I do wrong?_

Yuuki Nao, sporting a bandage on one arm from where she'd been hit with a blast of the Obsidian Lord's dying efforts to save himself, stood on the far side of the clearing that they'd retreated to. Natsuki's brow furrowed, wondering if Nao was suicidal.

It would be like Nao, Natsuki knew. They were so similar and Nao did have a deathwish that lead her to push and push and push until someone reached the breaking point.

Natsuki clenched her fist, she wouldn't let that happen.

Shizuru's apology to both of her victims had been flippant and mocking. Natsuki was unsure what she should think of it. She knew Shizuru and she knew that it was the most uncharacteristic thing she'd said or done all day. Shizuru felt the pain of her actions far closer to home than she admitted publicly, and Natsuki knew this. Perhaps it was just a front, a way to brush off responsibility until Shizuru was ready and willing to accept it.

Cocking her hip in a way that drew attention to the fact that she, shockingly, was not wearing a skirt, Nao grinned. She ran a hand though her hair, very pointedly ignoring Shizuru and focusing all of her attention on Natsuki's questioning stare. "Can you give me a ride?"

Natsuki blinked. "A ride?" She asked, disbelief filtering into her voice. Nao had been her enemy not a week ago. Nao had been the most all-consuming threat that she'd ever encountered. Nao had known things, how to push buttons, how to drive Natsuki to the brink of madness that Shizuru had succumbed to.

She'd snapped – Shizuru had completely lost control. Shizuru had killed her child – killed her mother. She would have killed Nao if Natsuki had allowed it to happen.

Shizuru looked as though she was considering doing it again. Natsuki placed a cautionary hand on Shizuru's clenched fist, shaking her head ever so slightly; this was not the time or the place. They were powerless now, thanks to Mai's wish, and Natsuki was even more cautious now. If Shizuru decided to kill Nao – she'd have to do it with her bare hands – something that Natsuki never wanted to see. They'd all died once, wasn't that enough?

Nao's eyes betrayed her emotions. She looked fearful, scared to be in the presence of Shizuru's cold and heartless stare, and Natsuki knew it. There was something else too, an odd sort of hope that Natsuki had never seen before. She knew the most important person to Nao was in a coma in a hospital somewhere outside of Fuuka - could it be.

"To the hospital - the one in the Ninth Ward." Nao was being vague, but Natsuki was smart enough to put two and two together. That was the one hospital in the area that was not at least marginally controlled by First District. Natsuki had been herself on several occasions.

_Perhaps her mother woke up?_

Shizuru inhaled as if she was about to speak but Natsuki again shook her head. It was strange to be so in tune with Shizuru, strange to know what she was thinking almost before she did. Natsuki had felt this before, on that day when she went to fulfill her promise to Mai. She'd admitted how much she loved her then - and ever since it had been terrifying how powerful those emotions really were.

"I would have to go and get my old bike."

The new one, sadly, was ruined. Yamada had spent a small fortune on importing it, only to have Natsuki destroy it without a second thought. Nao had busted up her old one pretty good, but despite the superficial damage to the paint job it had just been an axel problem and Shizuru had seen to it that it had gotten fixed.

"That's fine." Nao said. She turned and made as if to walk away from the pair of them. Looking over her shoulder, she added, "I'll be waiting by the gate."

Natsuki nodded jerkily and turned back to Shizuru. There was a look of betrayal in those russet eyes. Panic began to set in and Natsuki licked her lips searching for the right words to say. She knew that if she wasn't careful, she could set Shizuru off. She had done it several times already and she was worried that if she handled this situation well that Shizuru would once more fall into insanity. It was simply a risk that she was unwilling to take. She ... she wasn't sure how she felt, but Kuga Natsuki was not going to let the person most precious to her in the world fall again into that abyss. "Don't be that way." She said quietly, reaching out to touch Shizuru's cheek.

Shizuru turned her head so that Natsuki's fingers did not meet skin. She clenched her fist and brought it back to hang by her side - she did not want to deal with this now. "Natsuki is willing to do so much for a girl who tried to murder her."

The hurt that she felt from being snubbed like that, was not something that she'd anticipated. Why didn't she want comfort?

Natsuki couldn't pretend to understand how Shizuru's mind worked.

A small sigh escaped Natsuki's lips. "If I don't do it, she'll ask someone else - and that someone else might be less willing to make sure she gets there in one piece."

She didn't want Nao, for some twisted and perhaps fucked up reason, to ask a random stranger for a ride. Nao's ability to get into trouble was rivaled only by her ability to make terrible decisions. Natsuki wanted to make sure that she was able to get to her mother in one piece. Perhaps this was her penance - to know that she had to care about Nao despite the messed up stuff that she had done during those horrible weeks.

Shizuru looked thoughtful, her body swaying slightly as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. She raised a hand up and tapped her chin, her voice almost lost on the wind as she spoke. There was a hiss in her voice that sent a chill up Natsuki's spine. "It would be wiser to just push her off a cliff once more."

Natsuki's balked. "Don't say things like that." She ground out through gritted teeth. There was no reason for such an attitude. They were no longer struggling against the world and survival was no longer paramount. It was as though Shizuru had forgotten that fact. Natsuki knew it was true though, and she had to help those who couldn't help themselves. Was it penance? She didn't know.

She clenched her fists even tighter; she couldn't look at Shizuru now. "Haven't we learned anything from today? We're alive; it would pretty fucking stupid to start killing each other again." She spat the words out as though they were an insult, and in a sense they were. Shizuru needed to know that how she behaved was not right - appalling and inappropriate.

Anger flashed in those dark eyes. At least it was some emotion, Natsuki reasoned. Something was better than those dead orbs she'd lost herself in upon dying. "She tried to kill you first."

_Shizuru is a reflection upon myself_. Natsuki's thoughts were circuitous and confusing. She could not understand why she was so afraid of Shizuru's reactions to everything - she didn't handle situations like these well. She never had.

Natsuki pinched the bridge of her nose with a drawn out sigh. Shizuru would realize that she was being foolish in time. It was not Natsuki's place to correct her... friend?

Friend was a fitting title and that was what Natsuki was willing to apply for the moment. They would talk - at some other time. Now was not the time.

Now she had to get away.

"I'm not having this argument." She said quietly. She was afraid of Shizuru's emotions sometimes, afraid of what they might do. She knew it was better to simply not engage - but she was still smarting from the comment, from Shizuru's refusal to let Natsuki touch her. Her voice was harsh, angry. "I'm going to go take her; it's about an hour round trip."

She dug, deep in her pocket, shocked that the ring of keys attached to a pocket knife and a flashlight were still there - contained despite death and rebirth. She twisted the ring, taking the key to her apartment off of the ring with a practiced motion. The key felt warm in her hand, and as she reached down and pressed it into Shizuru's hand, Natsuki hoped that the sandy-haired girl felt the warmth as well.

Shizuru's hand was clammy and cold in her own. The key burned as it passed between their grasps. "Go to my apartment, here's the key." Natsuki said quietly. They were standing very close together now, and Natsuki could smell the shampoo on Shizuru's hair and the scent of ash and fire on her clothes. It was a fitting smell for her, Natsuki thought.

Natsuki's eyes met Shizuru's in one of those long and meaningful looks that they had been exchanging more and more regularly as of late. There was suddenly a wicked smile that did reach Shizuru's eyes as she tapped her chin thoughtfully, the key now safely deposited in her blazer pocket. "Natsuki only has one bed, are you sure that you're-"

_The nerve of that woman. _Natsuki's brow twitched.

This was a good sign, however, a sign that maybe not all was lost between them. Still, the teaching tone and the implication. She wasn't ready for that - whatever it was. "Shi-Shizuru!" She spluttered.

There was never a discussion between the two of them, even though Shizuru teased her constantly it was a safe sort of teasing. And after Shizuru had had that confrontation with Suzushiro... Natsuki suppressed a shudder. What had been implied there terrified her, but she didn't think Shizuru capable of it.

Perhaps it was better to just pretend it didn't happen - give that she really wasn't sure that anything _had _happened. Still, the thought that Shizuru would betray her trust like that was at the forefront of her mind as she muttered, pushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm fine with it - but just to sleep!"

"Ara, I was hoping Natsuki would ..." Shizuru's accent was thick, like she was trying to choke out something challenging to say - Natsuki had no idea what. There was something untraceable in Shizuru's eyes - a look of, was it longing? Natsuki had never been

Her brow furrowed, "Hoping what?"

Shizuru shook her head slightly, the jerking motion barely detected by Natsuki despite years of practice deciphering Shizuru's weird mood changes. Natsuki knew that she was going to try to tease further, but there was an almost-hidden quality in the request, as though Shizuru was going to ask for even more.

Something that Natsuki couldn't give, and despite her desperate hoping, it seemed as though Shizuru knew it too. "It is unimportant." Shizuru's accent was thick, her voice heavy with the burden of emotion Natsuki watched, unable to reach out and offer comfort. There was something holding her back.

Shizuru met Natsuki's inquisitive gaze eventually and with a sad smile, asked. "Will you call when you're on your way back?"

Natsuki hadn't even thought about that - thought about the fact that they were going to desperately need to talk.

She didn't want to talk; nor, she suspected, did Shizuru. They spent so long ignoring the actual events of the world around them, and of the emotions of the other that talking now would be pointless. Everything that they knew about each other was thrust, rather abruptly, into the open when it had been developing so nicely on its own - away from the prying eyes of society and their own mental torment. They did not speak of it, as they were unsure of just what it was yet.

Natsuki suspected that Shizuru had a name for the - thing - between them, but she would never ask for a definition. She was, perhaps rightly, afraid of what the answer might be.

Her cell phone was in her school blazer pocket, and Natsuki pulled it to check the battery before nodding at Shizuru. "Sure, do you still have your phone?" The question was off her lips and no sooner had it left than Natsuki regretted it. Asking that was the wrong thing to ask. She was terrified of what Shizuru might say now.

"I will retrieve it from where I left my things... before..." Shizuru trailed off as a sob escaped her lips.

The instinct to go to her, to embrace her and to kiss those tears away was almost too much for Natsuki to resist. She dug in her pocket and pulled out a wadded up bit of tissue that she was fairly certain was unused and offered it to Shizuru with a heavy heart. She couldn't... not yet anyway. She couldn't embrace her best friend. The pain of that rejection - the fear that what Suzushiro said had actually happened.

She clenched her fist.

_It didn't happen that way. There was no way Shizuru would betray my trust like that. _

"Shizuru..." She said quietly as Shizuru wordlessly accepted her proffered tissue. "Do you want me to walk with you?"

Wiping her eyes, Shizuru shook her head. "Like you, Natsuki, I need the time to think."

_How the hell does she know that? _

Shizuru reached out and touched Natsuki's cheek. It was a fleeting touch, but Natsuki's skin burned under the contact. "I will see you later."

Her cheeks burning with a fiery blush, Natsuki muttered, turning to head out of the clearing and down towards the city. "I'm leaving."

"Go and come back safely." Shizuru said, her voice sounding even more distant than before.

Natsuki left the clearing with the distinct feeling that she was being watched – scrutinized as she padded quietly down the dirty path and away from the girl who was so inexplicably important to her. It was the right thing to walk away, she knew it. Already it was too hard to talk to Shizuru, and it would only grow worse with time. Natsuki was no fool; she would not risk setting Shizuru off once more.

* * *

Thank you for your kind reviews and words of encouragement.


	3. Act One, Scene Two

_**Moments in Time**_

_Act One, Scene Two  
_

**pas·sage**1 Spelled [pas-ij] noun, verb,-saged, -sag·ing.

noun: _A lapse or passing, as of time. _or A_ progress or course, as of events. It grows exponentially. _

_

* * *

_

"You didn't have to do this, you know. I could have found my way." Yuuki Nao said, looking up from her cellphone. Her fingers still flew across the keypad as she eyed Natsuki with a narrowed and piercingly green stare. There was a look of fear in those bright green eyes, and Kuga Natsuki knew it well. She had seen it before, frozen in Nao's eyes as Shizuru's blade had cut through her child as though it had been nothing.

She knew that Nao had merely wanted to survive the carnival, to keep her mother alive - if once could even call her current state 'alive.' It was odd to think about, honestly, the fact that Nao had really had no ambition to take the carnival victory for Mai or whoever else actually had a chance at winning it.

_Strange_, Natsuki mused. _She was the only one of us who loved a parent more than anything else in the world._

_Maybe she is just a little girl at heart_.

Natsuki held out a spare helmet, one that she'd borrowed from the garage upon retrieving her motorcycle. The bike ran fine despite the long scratches along the underside of the wheel-well that went along the side all the way back to the gas tank. It was enough to ask that the garage fix the actual mechanical damage to her bike - the superficial wounds could be hammered out at a later date.

With regards to the helmet, though, Natsuki couldn't shake the odd look that Nao was giving her - as this helmet was black and not pink like her usual spare. That helmet belonged to Shizuru – she had been the one to buy it, and Natsuki felt strange loaning it to Nao, given the relationship the two girls had. She was perhaps overstepping the limits of their relationship, and Natsuki did not want to appear to Shizuru as though she was actively dismissing what they had between the two of them. All that she wanted was to make sure that she would have the time to think before getting thrust back into the near-toxic feeling in her stomach whenever she was in the same room as Fujino Shizuru.

She didn't want that though, all she wanted was that feeling of closeness and contentment as they faded away into nothingness - but that was off of death's dream, and not something that she deserved or would ever really get a chance to experience on her own. Shizuru had become her whole world at that moment, and Natsuki was terrified that she would find herself once again craving such an emotional attachment.

She had no time such petty distractions.

"Not loaning me Fujino's helmet?" Nao asked, clipping the helmet in place on her head. There was a wicked glint in her eye that made Natsuki once again wonder if Nao had a death wish, as she was goading like she had done back at that time.

Shizuru had very nearly cut her down that time. The naginata had been pointed at Nao's throat and there was no remorse in Shizuru's eyes.

The thought terrified her.

She could kill without thought - she was that protective of something that Natsuki wasn't even sure she wanted. Why was this so complicated? She blinked, trying to push the thoughts out of her mind. She did not want this.

_I don't deserve this._

Natsuki shrugged, her mind turning back to the conversation at hand. It would be safer to stay in the present for now - her mind was an incomprehensible place at the moment. "You asked, and no, I'm not." She glared at Nao, trying her best to look angry and annoyed, anything to hide the turmoil in her mind.

Nao looked away, the visor of the helmet masking her eyes - making it impossible for Natsuki to read anything from them. She wasn't good at interpretation of body language, but eyes were another story. It was part of why she was able to understand Shizuru so well, she knew what those eyes were saying when her face was that blank mask that Natsuki hated so much.

Natsuki just hated that even when trying to read Shizuru's eyes, she only was able to understand her friend a mere fraction of the time.

"You didn't have to do this." Nao muttered, again echoing the sentiments that Natsuki herself was feeling. Doing this was a bad idea and if she walked away now, she could go back to Shizuru and try to make nice, to fake happy. Try to get past the awkwardness that it seemed as though they could not escape.

It was better to run away, she reasoned. Shizuru was the private sort of person who did not like people to see her pain, Natsuki was not about to force her to confront the tangled mess of emotions that she was feeling, on top of what was no doubt already weighing heavily on the sandy-haired woman's mind.

Yes, getting away was a good idea.

She jammed her own helmet back onto her head, but even it felt strange and alien, as though Natsuki had not worn it in years.

_How long were we gone for? _

Everything was so unfamiliar, so new. Natsuki loved every minute of the rain soaked ground and the smell of rain in the barren trees. She loved the quiet hum of the power lines and the chirp of the birds that were too set in their ways to fly further south for the winter. She loved being alive, loved every single damn minute of it. Yet in that moment, she had been completely prepared to throw that all way for one last chance at happiness. To be with Shizuru meant more to her than life itself at that one moment, and while she was terrified to admit it - she wanted it to stay that way.

The press of lips against her own, a shocked intake of breath.

It had been beautiful.

"I know that, maybe I just wanted to be nice." She narrowed her eyes and motioned for Nao to get on the bike behind her. She was not thinking about this anymore.

What did that kiss mean - she'd done it on impulse and even now she wasn't sure what her intent had been.

_No, I am not thinking about this now._

"Nice is not an adjective I'd associate with you Kuga." Nao murmured in her ear as she settled onto the bike behind Natsuki.

She was pressed up against every inch of Natsuki's body and the sheer amount of skin exposed on Nao's leg was enough to make Natsuki's cheeks burn. She was glad for the visor of her helmet, which kept the situation from escalating further. She did not want to think about what would happen if Nao realized just how uncomfortable the press of her body against Natsuki's back was making her. Who the fuck asks for a ride on a motorcycle and shows up wearing a skirt shorter than sin?

Natsuki frowned, focusing her attention back on starting up the bike and mentally running through the fastest route that was not currently blocked by debris from the battles they had fought.

Nao's hands feel into place around her waist and Natsuki had had enough. While she knew that Nao was just fucking with her on a base level, she would not stand for it. Acting like this, so soon after everything had gone directly to hell in a hand basket, was uncalled for. "Do you want me to drop you over a cliff, I will."

There was a threat in her voice that Natsuki knew would cut through to Nao, even if nothing else did. This was a lot for her to ask for, and even more for Natsuki to provide when her own situation was even now bordering on insanity.

Nao loved her mother, it was a childish love, but one that Natsuki admired and wished that she had been able to hold on to in her own life. Her mother had been a traitor though, and nothing could forgive such actions.

Shit now I'm talking just like her.

Shizuru had seen to the fact that those who she perceived to have wronged Natsuki had been punished - she'd said as much in her crazed ramblings after Natsuki had gotten in between that blade and Nao's life for the first time. Had they come back to life like the rest of them had? Or had Shizuru actually murdered that many people in cold blood only to actually have to face the consequences?

Dread filled her body.

Now was not the time to think about that.

"Whatever." Nao said, her grip growing tighter as Natsuki kicked the engine to life and sped off down a side street.

She was going to avoid as much of the commonly traveled roadways as she could. She knew that there would police out, especially after that spectacular fireworks show that they had put on. She had had enough dealings with the local Fuuka Police to know that while they were not in First District's pocket, they were essentially powerless against the innumerable presence of First District within the city.

The bastards controlled the hospitals, the police to some extent, and all emergency services. They would be probably setting up roadblocks and hurrying to rebuild Fuuka before students starting coming back to the school - if they did at all.

The main bridge had been knocked out by Alyssa's child, but the side bridges that were narrower not built to withstand a lot of traffic were surprisingly clear as they sped through the rubble and destruction of their dance.

It was so far spread - Natsuki had no idea that their battle with each other and the Obsidian Lord had been so far reaching. She felt a pang in her heart as she saw a ruined playground, the metal of the swing set twisted and contorted as thought it had been melted by uncontrollable flame.

Kagutsuchi.

She gunned the engine, wanting to get away from this horrible place. The Land of Fuuka was so twisted, so completely grotesque and alien now. They would rebuild it, and quickly - as it was their way to cover up what transpired here - but she was so afraid of what faced her when she returned home that night that she almost wanted to drive straight past the hospital and run away.

She wanted to start anew, and Natsuki knew that she wouldn't be able to do that without some sort of closure between herself and Shizuru. There was so much that they hadn't said - that she did not think would ever go said between them. Shizuru was just as closed off as she was.

Yet those innocent touches, those lips that she'd taken without so much as a second thought. Natsuki bit down hard on her lip to keep her concentration focused on driving. She would find herself thinking about all this stuff later, but now she was driving, she was free.

Nao was pressed far too tightly against her.

She blushed again, cursing her strange urge to be kind to the redhead; the kindness had given her nothing but trouble.

I should really stop being so damn nice to people.

The hospital rolls into view a few minutes later, and Natsuki parked in one of the handicap spots at the front of the building as Nao detached herself and fixed her skirt. She pulled off her helmet and dumped it unceremoniously in Natsuki's lap. With her face now clearly in view, there was something distant and downright bizarre painted across Nao's visage - apprehension and extreme nervousness.

Natsuki unclipped her own helmet and pushed the visor up. She felt strange asking this, but since she was on a being nice kick already, she didn't think it would hurt. She was building bridges now - since she'd burned so many of them before this whole ordeal had started. "Do... do you want me to come in?"

Bright green eyes widened and Nao's hand clenched into a fist as she jerked her head to the negative. "No."

Natsuki was not going to push it. "Alright then." She said, clipping the spare helmet into place on the back of her bike and digging in her pocket for her cell phone. She had to call Shizuru - to say that she was coming back.

She did not want to call. Shizuru would be waiting for her at home and the confrontation would be inevitable. She wanted to avoid it at all costs.

She wasn't ready to face what awaited her at home. She didn't think that she would ever be prepared for it, but there was really nothing to be said for the situation.

This was like what had happened that time too. She hadn't wanted to face her then either.

It had ended... okay. If dying had counted as okay. Natsuki supposed that it did, as she was here, straddling her bike and completely comfortable in this moment - with a large amount of horsepower at her beck and call. "I'll be back in the morning." She added, not knowing if Nao would need the ride back or not.

"Okay." Nao turned and walked through the sliding doors of the hospital without a second look, leaving Natsuki wondering if she would ever get a word of thanks from her.

Probably not, Nao wasn't exactly the most communicative person under the best of circumstances.

* * *

Thank you for your kind reviews and words of encouragement.


	4. Act One, Scene Three

_**Moments in Time**_

_Act One, Scene Three  
_

**pas·sage**1 Spelled [pas-ij] noun, verb,-saged, -sag·ing.

noun: _A lapse or passing, as of time. _or A_ progress or course, as of events. It grows exponentially. _

_

* * *

_

Kuga Natsuki was glad that she'd taken the charm off of her cell phone when she started to dial Shizuru's number, the wind was picking up and the small metal chain with 'good luck' spelled in stylized kanji that Mai had given her after winning it at a festival the previous year rattling against the plastic backing of her phone would be incredibly distracting. To this day, Natsuki was not quite sure what had possessed her to smile and nod at Mai's friendly gift and then surrender her phone to Mai so that the red head could attach the gift.

She reasoned that it was probably a sense of obligation and also gratitude. Shizuru had been her only friend up until that point in time and it was oddly nice to have more than one person smile at her in a caring way. She was a sentimental fool, and Natsuki knew it. Still, she genuinely liked Mai and was eternally grateful for what she had done during the carnival. Nagi had taken a liking to her, which had worked in Natsuki's favor in terms of so many of her actions over the past months – she'd gotten the answers that she'd accepted the HiME power in order to find.

She still wasn't sure that she liked the answers.

She dialed Shizuru's number from memory – she had never programed it into the phone for fear of it being found on her person by First District. Thinking about that childish fear now was enough to bring a sick and twisted smile to Natsuki's fate as she thought about how those bastards had perhaps finally gotten their due. And at the hands of the one person that Natsuki had been so desperate to protect them from, the situation was almost perfect.

A frown pulled across her face, dragging her smile downward almost as soon as that thought path had completed.

She was acting like Shizuru again. Never had she dreamed of such a result to her single-minded quest to destroy the organization that had destroyed her life; and Shizuru had managed to do just that in a heartbeat. Those people had not deserved to die in the way that they had - no one deserved to be sacrificed at that blade. Natsuki had tried to prevent as many deaths as possible. She'd tried so hard - but she had not been able to come out of her own head and her own fears to stop Shizuru then.

The phone rang, the tone echoing in Natsuki's ear as she pressed the receiver into her ear to make sure she didn't miss Shizuru picking up. The pressure felt welcome, and the pinch of cartilage between bone and hard plastic reminded her that she was indeed alive. The pulsating tone of the ringer was enough to confirm, yet again, that she still felt nothing but annoyance for the majority of humanity.

The pause was so drawn out that she almost hoped that Shizuru wouldn't pick up. She was afraid of what she might say.

They were dancing around too many things right now. One misstep and they would never again be able to return to the way that things were before. Natsuki feared losing that innocent friendship more than anything else in the entire world – and as she had watched it crumble with Shizuru's mind during the battle, Natsuki had felt the child-like contentment in that friendship vanish before her eyes. She had no idea what she would do if she could never talk to Shizuru as she had before she'd found out that her best friend was a HiME.

Before she had found out that her best friend was in love with her. Real, passionate love, the kind they only talk about in fairy tales.

She didn't want to think of the consequences for her actions during that battle.

She didn't want to think about what that kiss had meant.

"Hello?" Shizuru's voice was soft and distant, but it brightened the dark frown that had fallen across Natsuki's face upon thought of First District and the flush of the memory of that kiss. There was something comforting and friendly about her accented voice, even if it sounded as distant and empty as it had during the carnival over the phone. Shizuru was not a big fan of phones, something that irritated Natsuki to no end throughout the course of their friendship, as she did not like having to carry around something that was known for making shrill beeping noises.

Natsuki had called her foolish for not liking them back then, and Shizuru had told her that it was far more reasonable and enjoyable for her if Natsuki just dropped by without warning. Now seeing the further implication of Shizuru's words, Natsuki thought herself a fool.

Natsuki jerked her head to the side, trying to tear the image of those dead, dead eyes out of her head. "Shizuru?" She started, cupping her hand around the mouthpiece of her phone so that it would not be drowned out by the brisk wind. "I'm on my way back now - I should be there in around thirty minutes." There was no sense beating around the bush. They would talk when she got back.

And shit, it would be hard as hell to say what she needed to say.

Natsuki swallowed, a lump in her throat had suddenly appeared when she thought about what they were going to have to talk about. It might even be better to do it over the phone, as she was so afraid of what was going to happen if they were together in person.

_I'm a fucking coward._

Shizuru's voice had a slight smile in it - it always did. Natsuki wondered what she was doing that was causing that smile now; probably just existing, but if she was making an idiot of herself again... "Good, I made us some food."

Food. While the gesture was nice, she wasn't sure that she could handle eating right now - let alone talking. Driving the bike was tiring enough as it was – despite the freedom that it offered – and driving for this long had been pushing limits that Natsuki was not even aware she still possessed. Getting home was another story and she knew that it would take a herculean effort to make it back alive.

All she wanted was to sleep - to escape into that dream world that she had faded into so easily before all this had started. A world filled with no complications and simple the dreams that she wished for a better future. Sometimes, Natsuki did not like that dream world – as it was too bizarrely innocent and utopian for her tastes. Shizuru was not crazy there, however, and she was not obsessively and terrifyingly in love with her there either.

Natsuki knew that being honest was her best bet in such a situation. Shizuru would talk her into eating anyway, because that was what she did though subtle concern and insistent comments that made Natsuki feel as though she was somehow in the wrong in refusing. It was a stupid game, but Natsuki played it because she knew better than to not – Shizuru liked games like that because it was a subtle measure of how close they were as individuals. Shizuru would talk her into eating anyway. It was just the way that they worked together, Natsuki would playfully refuse and Shizuru would insist upon something in the name of Natsuki's poor health. "Shizuru I'm too tired to eat." She shifted her weight on the back of her bike - trying to find an angle where wind would not drown out her voice as she tried to talk to Shizuru.

It was annoying, frankly.

"I can put it in the refrigerator if you want." There was something in Shizuru's voice that Natsuki couldn't place - it sounded almost hurt. She'd been hearing a lot of that recently, the hurt and the anguish that came with the carnival was something that would probably never leave Natsuki's mind – and the pain in Shizuru's eyes as she flinched away from that oh so friendly and welcoming touch…

Natsuki had never been able to really read into Shizuru's moods, and right now she could care less about them. This was a round-about conversation and one that she did not have the mental facilities for at the moment. She felt as though she was slogging through molasses just talking to Shizuru, and she knew that as soon as she got off the phone it was going to get far worse.

She was simply tired and by all rights, Shizuru should have been too.

They'd been through so much, and sleeping was getting to the point where it was an inevitable conclusion.

"Let's just play it by ear." She said, smiling slightly as she raised a hand to prevent her hair from blowing erratically across her face. This wind was really getting on her already frayed nerves. "Okay?"

Shizuru's voice took on a teasing tone that Natsuki recognized and yet could not defend against despite years of dealing with it. "I put mayonnaise on it." The tone was innocent, as though Shizuru was commenting on the weather and not Natsuki's culinary weakness.

_Damnit, woman, you know me too well._ Natsuki bit her tongue to keep the retort from escaping her lips. She knew that at this point, protest was a moot point. Shizuru had keyed her way into the one weakness that Natsuki conceivably had when it came to food and had made that weakness an offer it could not refuse.

"I..." Natsuki began, searching for the right words, "well I suppose I could eat."

_Fuck, I sound like an idiot._

Shizuru had made her food, and in order to do that had probably had to go shopping - not to mention the fact that Nao had raided her kitchen and probably completely depleted Natsuki's already rather limited food supplies. Cooking took time; the kitchen had been trashed, as had the rest of the apartment.

What Shizuru would have had to have done in order to make the apartment habitable was mind-boggling to Natsuki. _She must have worked fast._

_I don't believe this - I have done nothing to deserve this._

They were not dating, and it was almost as though Shizuru presumed that this was still something that they could both mentally handle. She wasn't sure that they could, honestly.

"I'll be waiting." Shizuru said her tone businesslike once more. This was the voice that left no room for negotiation, and the one that Natsuki knew better than to refuse. Shizuru was usually correct in her assumptions about Natsuki's health, despite the fact that Natsuki would never admit it openly.

"Right..." She trailed off, but Shizuru had already hung up the phone. This brought ire to Natsuki's completive stare as she looked down the busy city street. She could just barely make out the bay in the distance. She would have to drive through that devastation and destruction again on her way home, and Shizuru was obviously expecting her sooner rather than later.

_I can't dawdle._

She felt like an ill-behaved child, breaking the rules just for the sake of doing just that. Shizuru was going to be upset that she'd reached out to Nao, but she would have to understand that Natsuki wanted nothing to do with Shizuru's perceived rivalry between the two of them. Nao was what Natsuki would have become without Shizuru's... positive - yes, it was positive for the most part - influence. She just wanted Nao to have a friend - which was a chance at something that she'd never been given the gift of having before.

Natsuki snapped her phone shut and turned her attention back to the motorcycle between her legs. She was balancing it, bracing with one foot as the other prepared to push off and kick the bike back into motion. Yet she was hesitating, afraid of what she was going to encounter as she headed back home.

When driving through Fuuka, the path had been free and clear of people, but she knew the way that First District worked. The chances that they would be mobile, moving through the streets like flies - cleaning up the carnage that was left behind from the game that they had striven to create.

_Fucking bullshit._

Natsuki jammed her phone back into her pants pocket and pulled her helmet back on. The silent world inside of the insulated space brought a ringing to her ears and Kuga Natsuki found herself speeding off into the growing dusk wondering why exactly returning home was almost as terrifying a prospect as refraining from doing so.

* * *

Thank you for your kind reviews and words of encouragement.


	5. Act One, Scene Four

_**Moments in Time**_

_Act One, Scene Four  
_

**pas·sage**: Spelled [pas-ij] noun, verb,-saged, -sag·ing.  
noun: _A lapse or passing, as of time. _or A_ progress or course, as of events. It grows exponentially. _

_

* * *

_

The door was unlocked when Kuga Natsuki finally made it home. She was dragging her feet by the time she reached her third floor apartment, fatigue clearly written all over her face. All that she wanted to was to climb the final set of stairs to her loft bedroom and finally pass out. The utter exhaustion of the past several days was catching up with her so quickly that Natsuki was practically counting the seconds until she could lay down and pass out for a good twenty four hours.

She shoved her keys back into her pocket and continued up the stairs, her eyes squinting in the dimly lit walk-up. Her apartment was rare in the fact that it was so far inside the city that it actually had an indoor walk-up. Most of the apartments in Fuuka were like this though, built with the fact that the carnival could happen at any time and that civilians had to be blissfully unaware of what was going to happen just outside their tightly locked doors. It was sick and twisted, the way that this entire place had been constructed around that damn event. Natsuki reasoned that it was because this was the hallowed ground where the maidens had to take up arms against each other, and the city had been built up around that superstition.

The smell of freshly cooked food hit her nose and she wrinkled it to prevent herself from breathing in too deeply. She wanted sleep, and she was positive that inhalation of more of these good smells than she wanted was going to force her to eat and then she would be forced to confront her fears in direct dialog with Shizuru.

This was Shizuru's game though. Play into Natsuki's very obvious weaknesses and force her to do things that she was not willing to do. Perhaps she should know better than to expect to do anything on her own any more – their fates had been so tightly intertwined that Natsuki was unsure if she would ever see another person with the same intimacy that she felt for Shizuru. The thought terrified her, she was just barely sixteen and already she felt as though she was wiser in the ways of the world than many of her peers.

She'd died and come back for something after all.

The words found their way to her lips with a force of habit that Natsuki wasn't aware existed. She was so used to coming home, throwing her keys on the table by the door and heading towards the fridge for something cold to drink before collapsing in front of the television. It was strange to know that there was someone here, waiting for her. "I'm home." She said, taking the time to put her keys gently on the table and to close the door softly behind her.

She didn't think that Shizuru would take well to door slamming at this point in time – and truth be told, she did not want to risk upsetting her friend.

It was like she was walking on egg shells, and Natsuki was not sure that she was okay doing that in her own damn apartment.

This was going to get old really quickly.

She was tried, cranky, she just wanted to sleep. Forced interaction was stupid.

Shizuru's head popped out from around the half-wall where Natsuki's kitchen was obscured from the rest of the apartment's view. Her hair was pinned up, with a few tresses falling down to frame her face. Natsuki's breath caught – she'd never seen her friend like this – she was beautiful in a simple school blouse and jeans that Natsuki recognized as her own. "Welcome back." Shizuru's accented voice answered her announcement. There was a smile on her face – she looked more relaxed now.

Natsuki knew better though, she knew that it was a mask, and that Shizuru's eyes did not spell the same fake happiness that her voice and easy smile seemed to imply. This was the problem. Shizuru was too good at hiding. She cloaked herself in false happiness that was enough to drive anyone insane.

She had wondered if that false happiness would someday come back to bite Shizuru in the metaphorical ass and her actions during the carnival, at least the ones that Natsuki was aware of, seemed to imply just that. There was only so much control a person could have before they would explode in the most unfortunate ways possible. The carnival had been living testament to this very fact.

Shizuru's face turned questioning, as if wondering why Natsuki was alone and without the company of the girl she'd just ferried to the hospital. Natsuki shrugged off her leather jacket and tossed it over the back of the couch. "I'm gunna go get her in the morning."

The question, again, did not need to be asked and Natsuki wondered when exactly it was that they had made it to this point of understanding and of trust. Right now she didn't even trust Shizuru to not fly off the handle and start murdering people again. She was treading so carefully, afraid, paranoid. Mostly worried that her making the decision to help out Nao might not have been the best one she'd ever made.

Shizuru came around the wall to stand a few feet away from Natsuki, the distance between them very obvious. Natsuki wanted to go to her, to say all the things that were racing through her head – to impress upon her that it was alright to be the way she was. That she forgave her for what had happened and what she had done.

"Alright." Shizuru said quietly, her face not betraying the murderous look in her eyes. Natsuki knew that Nao was going to be a sore spot for years to come between them – if they lasted that long – but it was simply one of those thing that Shizuru was going to have to deal with. Natsuki did not want any more fighting, and she saw something in Nao that she could not quite place. It was a deep similarity between the two of them, and something that Natsuki did not think she'd ever be able to overlook again.

She had not given Nao the time of day before, but now she knew that risking ignoring her would probably cause a downward spiral similar to her own before she met Shizuru. She had the chance to do good, to _save_ a life if she played her cards right. It was one of the strangest feelings that Natsuki had ever experienced.

She sighed quietly, not meeting Shizuru's eye. She did not want to have this conversation, at least not right now. "Look, I'm dead ..." she began, her fingers fussing with the hem of her sweatshirt. It was warm in here – Shizuru must have used the oven.

The guilt hit her like a hammer and she faltered once more. She did not want to be seen as ungrateful. Those eyes, those expressive and yet confoundedly confusing eyes. She couldn't meet them when she was dismissing all of the other girl's hard work. The place looked spotless – no small feat considering the damage that Nao had done. "I'm really tired, Shizuru... can we just sleep? I'm sorry you went to all the trouble of making food..."

She was rambling and she knew it. But she wanted Shizuru to understand that she wasn't trying to blow her off or make light of what she had done. There was a sense of desperation in her voice that she didn't realize was there.

She wanted it to all be okay again.

She was lying to herself again. She wanted the distance she now felt between Shizuru and herself. She was afraid to being close to someone, to anyone.

Death did have its comforts, and being in Shizuru's arms had been so welcoming as she'd been pulled by that red blade's grip into the warmth of that embrace had been so tantalizing that Natsuki had never wanted to move again. She did not understand this attraction. Shizuru was just another person, just another friendly face; and yet she was different. Fujino Shizuru understood Natsuki far better than Natsuki was willing to let on. The very thought of how easily Shizuru could understand her was terrifying.

Shizuru took a step forward, and then another, placing a friendly hand on Natsuki's shoulder as she smiled. This one was genuine. "There's no problem, I am as tired as you are."

Natsuki bit her lip. She didn't want to come off as ungrateful. She reached up, as if to squeeze Shizuru's hand reassuringly. Her movements were jerky, and she couldn't move with the fluidity that she was used to.

"And frankly, I don't have much of an appetite." Shizuru continued; withdrawing her hand before Natsuki could grasp it. Their fingers touched, ever so briefly, and Natsuki's fingers burned from the contact.

Her heart was beating so fast from that contact. It was intoxicating – yet Shizuru's reaction confused her.

_Aren't you the one who's supposed to be in love with me? _

The resentment was quickly squashed underneath the sad smile that crossed her face. She knew better than to let that show – at least not now. Maybe someday, when they had moved past this fragile stage of existence she could say something. Today was not that day – and Natsuki couldn't help but think that it wasn't going to come for a while.

She sighed, closing her eyes briefly as she struggled to keep the hurt from her voice. "Not even for tea?"

Teasing Shizuru was a challenging and daunting task. Natsuki tried to give as good as she got as often as possible, but it was hard to do. Her fingers tightened upwards into fists and she found the smile that had come so easily at Shizuru's shying away from her touch, turning downwards now. The frown was expressive and sullen.

Perhaps typical.

Shizuru appeared to think for a few long, drawn out seconds. She raised a knowing finger to her chin and tapped it thoughtfully, before speaking. Natsuki wished that she could have that level of foresight into her words and controlling what she said. Her mouth did her no favors – and her gruff and brash way of communicating had not earned her many friends.

Still, Shizuru had stuck around. Natsuki was so grateful for that, she could not even begin to find the words to express it.

"You have a terrible selection." Shizuru had shoved her hands into the back pockets her jeans – _my jeans – _and had raised her eyebrows at Natsuki as if daring for a retort.

There was some green tea bags in the cupboard if Natsuki remembered correctly, as well as some loose black tea that Shizuru had gifted her after Natsuki had discovered just how much caffeine was in it. There might have been some of those awesome Chinese expanding-flower teas too. Nao could have used them though, when she had desecrated the apartment.

They were more expensive, therefore Nao was more likely to use them as an added _fuck you_ to the whole situation. Natsuki would have done the same had she been in a predicament such as Nao.

Folding her arms across her chest, Natsuki smirked. "Whose fault is that?" She demanded, knowing that Shizuru had spent enough time over at the apartment to have brought some of her own.

Shizuru liked to keep their lives separate though. Natsuki noticed that she would never leave anything behind when she left at the end of the day – as if she was afraid to nest, to leave her things around to ensure that she had a reason to come back. This was strange to Natsuki, as she had a full change of clothes in Shizuru's (now destroyed) dorm room, as well as extra socks and a healthy supply of her favorite instant ramen for when she needed a place to crash and cram for exams.

_And yet you wear my jeans as though you own them._

Natsuki shook her head slightly and Shizuru blinked, staring at her. "Mine, I suppose," she said. There was something that could have been called a smile playing across her lips now, and Natsuki realized that the fact that Shizuru _was not_ smiling was bothering her far more than the nature of this conversation. There was something so entirely alien about this unsmiling shell of her best friend. Something that Natsuki found meeting with fear as she tried to figure out why Shizuru was not looking at her the way that she used to.

_What did I do?_

Shizuru threw her hands up in the air, as if she was giving up. "I tried to diversify your palate." There was a flare for the dramatic that Natsuki had always known that Shizuru had, working its way up to the surface to defuse what was quickly becoming a tense situation. Natsuki wondered if she did it consciously of it just came to her naturally as a defensive mechanism.

Still, the flush that came her face was enough to make her turn away so Shizuru could not revel in this victory. "It's perfectly good as it is," she muttered.

She moved then, brushing past Shizuru and heading towards the stairs that lead to her loft. She was going to change out of these ash and soot covered clothes into something more comfortable.

"Shizuru…" She started, her foot on the bottom step. The sandy-haired woman was now leaning against the half-wall that separated the rest of the apartment from the kitchen, watching Natsuki with an interested expression on her face.

"What is it?"

"Do you -" Dammit her face was getting redder as she spoke. Natsuki looked down quickly so that her hair covered some of her face. "Do you want to borrow some clothes to sleep in?" She was speaking so quickly that the words all joined together and Natsuki felt stupid asking.

There was a beat, a pause then. Where silence filled the room and the wind blowing across the broken windows that Shizuru had taped plastic trash bags across to prevent the cold from getting in was the only noise that could be heard. The silence was so powerful, so oppressive, so unlike them. This was supposed to be a loud, happy friendship – not one filled with pregnant pauses and silence that could mean nothing or everything.

"I mean, since you're no stranger to stealing my clothing." Natsuki continued hastily. She hadn't meant to imply anything by what she had said, but the words had come out regardless and she instantly regretted them.

_She's going to think I want something from her that I don't. _

Panic began to set in as another period of silence continued so quickly after the first.

Shizuru's musical laughter filled the room then and Natsuki found a weight lifting off her shoulders that she didn't know was there suddenly gone. She grinned back at Shizuru, who smiled at her from across the room.

"I apologize, Natsuki, I should have asked. These are your favorite jeans." It felt so strange, talking about something so fucking meaningless as a pair of pants. Natsuki did not know how best to respond, but Shizuru was not done talking. "You go change; I will put the food in the refrigerator so that we may eat it in the morning."

She nodded and hurried up the stairs. She was somehow grateful, despite the apparent break in the tension between them, to get away. There was just too much, and it was too soon. They should not have agreed to spend the night together, but Natsuki knew that they were going to have to. They had no choice now. They'd committed to this and they were going to have to see it through.

_I trust her._

It had become a mantra for Natsuki, and she was repeating it over and over in her head as she pulled off her clothes, undid her bra and threw the pile into a corner, as far away from the bed as she could get them without the thump alerting Shizuru to the fact that she was, yet again, not using the hamper for her dirty laundry.

Natsuki chose a t-shirt to sleep in, long and soft and definitely comfortable. Further rummaging in the drawer that usually housed her t-shirts alone produced a pair of shorts that looked and smelled presentable. She pulled them on quickly and went hunting for another t-shirt for Shizuru to wear.

She had to find something, since she'd offered clothing in the first place.

In her closet she discovered a worn men's shirt that she thought at one point had belonged to her mother via her father. It was one of the few things of her mother's that Natsuki had kept – as she had not really had the time to get all of the sentimental things that she wanted from her family home before her father shipped her four prefectures away to go to Fuuka.

_Shizuru would look good in something like this. _The thought came unbidden and Natsuki frowned, knowing that she wanted nothing to do with _those_ thoughts. She was still so unsure of herself, and the thoughts that came with the idea of Shizuru, half naked in her bed, were enough to make her flush once more.

She clenched her fist around the shirt and turned, hurriedly trotting down the stairs to put the idea out of her head. She knew better than to dwell on some of the harsh realities of the past few days. She was terrified of what her relationship with Shizuru actually meant for their future, and how Shizuru's own feelings might spell doom for all involved.

There some something else though, something buried that Natsuki would never admit, even to herself. She enjoyed the interaction and the easy banter that they shared between the two of them. She liked how Shizuru looked at her, and how protective the older girl got. She liked how Shizuru was obviously harboring some deep-seeded love and affection for her.

_Back then…_

_I lied._

Shizuru was just closing the refrigerator when Natsuki came into the kitchen, the shirt still clenched tightly in her fist. She relaxed her grip and held it out wordlessly to Shizuru. "This is all I have," she said, hoping that her not offering any pants would not bother Shizuru.

She was leaving herself open to the most merciless of teasing, and she knew it. Shizuru, however, seemed uninterested in that, and she took the shirt wordlessly and held it up to look at it with a critical eye. "Your father's?" She asked; an inquisitive look on her face as she fingered the fabric.

Natsuki growled, she still did not like talking about the man who had basically abandoned her to the dogs of First District when her mother had died. He had replaced her with a new family now, one that did what he said and did not question her mother's unfortunate passing. "My mother's," she said shortly. Her hands had clenched into fists again and she exhaled slowly, trying to calm down. "I sleep in it sometimes."

Shizuru nodded, and brushed past Natsuki on her way to the bathroom, leaving her once again alone with her thoughts.

The bathroom door closed with a curt snap and Natsuki exhaled once again. She could do this, snuggle up to Shizuru and pretend that everything that had happened had actually not happened. The weariness of the world felt as though it rested on her shoulders.

She shut off the light in the kitchen and the one in the hallway, before climbing the stairs once again. She fell onto her bed and made sure that she only flopped on one of the several pillows that littered her unmade bed. Shizuru would be up in a few minutes, and until then she was going to try and force everything out of her mind that had been bothering her. There was so much – the day had been long and they'd died and come back again and it felt as though they'd died again after that.

It was a dead feeling, emotionless and bitter. She hated it, because she felt as though she would never be able to feel again, with the feeling so dead within her. She missed the feeling of being alive like she had been not three days previously. Now it felt like she was half alive, as though something desperately important was missing from her life.

Groaning, Natsuki pulled her pillow over her head. She did not want to deal with this now. She wanted to sleep, to shut her mind off to the possibilities of anything else that might happen between the two of them right now.

She wanted it to go back to the way it had been before.

Shizuru came up a few minutes later, and Natsuki found herself rolling over to make room for her friend who quickly claimed the other pillow and turned away from Natsuki as she settled herself into bed. That was understandable. Natsuki did not want to face the prospect of sleep migration and snuggling in the wee hours of the morning. She did not trust herself to be that close to Shizuru right now, maybe ever. There were thoughts that come only under the guise of dreams – thoughts that she did not think she could suppress if she was in the grip of sleep.

Still, something was bothering her, and Shizuru's uneven breathing told her that her friend had not fallen asleep yet. She rolled over and poked the taller girl in the shoulder. "Hey... do you think we were brought back for a reason?"

Shizuru sighed, a dramatic and theatrical sigh, but one that Natsuki could tell was actually heartfelt. She did not want to be talking about this, apparently, which was a shame as it was really bothering Natsuki. She wanted to be able to talk about what had happened with no worries of what Shizuru might do or say. It didn't seem like too much to ask, honestly. Maybe she was expecting too much, but she really didn't think she was. "I don't know." Shizuru said at length, her tone suggesting that Natsuki should drop the conversation.

She could not, though, not with it simmering this close to the surface. Who knew when they would be able to talk about this again? Shizuru was so tightlipped about things that were bothering her that Natsuki knew that she could not count on being able to discuss this in the future. She changed tactics, knowing that she had to get Shizuru engaged in the conversation somehow. "Is it weird that I'd rather we just stayed dead?"

Death was simple, you didn't feel anything, you had no cares and your life was calm and collected. This, this was far worse, knowing what awaited you on the other side, and yet not being able to move past it in life. Kuga Natsuki had liked that quiet, that warm feeling of Shizuru's arms around her and the happy memory of those gentle lips that she had so naively pressed against her own.

Now the memory was more like a curse.

Shizuru's body was tense, her for rigid next to Natsuki's as she spoke. Her voice was low and dangerous, the sort of voice that made you think twice about pursuing any more questions. "I don't know Natsuki." Her tone hardened even more. "I have had my share of suicidal self-deprecating thoughts for the day - for a life time - I'd like to go to bed."

She had been shut down, and Natsuki knew that at this point, it was better to simply go to sleep. "Mn," she assented, and closed her eyes once more.

She would try again in the morning.

_Curtain: End Act One._

* * *

The First Act, _Aftermath_, is now complete! Phew!~ This story is so emotionally draining to write. I hope that y'all are enjoying it as much as I am! Thank you, as always, for your kind words of encouragement. This story is very different from my previous stories, but I'm enjoying the growing experience through writing it.


	6. Act Two, Scene One

_**Moments in Time**_**  
Act Two - Scene One  
**

**Dead Air -**  
n. 1._ An__ unintended interruption in a broadcast during which there is no sound.  
2. A silence that should not exist._

* * *

It was mid-morning when she awoke, her eyes crusty with sleep and the grit of the previous day's battles. It had been too late and the air too tension filled the night before for her to shower and wash away all the guilt and death from her body. There was soreness all around her as she struggled to move, to uncurl herself from the ball she'd been sleeping in and allow her skin to be warmed by the harsh rays of the late fall sun.

She rubbed at the hard and crust like formations at the corner of her eyes sleepily with one hand while reaching out with the other, feeling for her companion. It had been too quiet - the steady sound of breathing that had lulled her to sleep had been cut off and she was once again awake and alone. She had always been a light sleeper for this precise reason, sleeping with such a steady and relaxing sound as another's rhythmic breathing could soothe her to the point where its absence made it impossible for her to sleep.

Kuga Natsuki felt nothing, only a cold void where the once warm body of her best friend had been.

She crumpled then - for she had known that it was coming. There was no way that she would have stayed - they were too different, and what sleeping together had done was simply to drive them apart more. She should not have suggested it. She should not have implied that it might work for them - she was a fool to try and now she had to bear the brunt of it.

She hated Shizuru for running away – from denying what they could have if they could just _talk _to each other.

There was only so much she could do in such a situation. Her friend - her best fucking friend - could not stand to be in the same room with her and even in her half-asleep state this thought overwhelmed her.

_Where did I go wrong?_

Mai had told her once, stubbornly wiping tears from her eyes, that the people you love always make you cry. Natsuki thought that she understood that now, only she did not love Shizuru.

Or at least she thought she did not.

Sunlight filtered into the room from the broken windows and Natsuki sat up, running a hand through her hair. Her shirt had ridden up sometime in the night and was bunched up just beneath her breasts – an expanse of skin was now open to the cool air of the apartment and she shivered.

_So this is what it feels like to be truly alone._

Her jeans and the shirt she had lent Shizuru were folded neatly on the end of the bed – but besides that there was no other trace of her friend. It was as though she had never existed.

In a cacophony of motion, Natsuki surged forward. She grabbed her jeans from the end of the bed and pulled them on before she had even fully stood up. "Shizuru!" She shouted, buttoning them as she thumped down the stairs.

The bathroom door stood open and the light had been left on. The shower was wet and there was a towel hung up over the curtain to dry.

She had just left.

Natsuki grabbed her keys and her jacket, jamming her feet into slip on sneakers that she had forgotten she owned and raced out the door and into the blinding light of the late November morning.

"Shizuru!" She called, emerging from her building and out onto the street.

There were people all around her then – but none of them the girl she wanted to see.

In the middle of a crush of humans on their way to work, Kuga Natsuki was completely and totally alone.

* * *

Second Act Commence!


	7. Act Two, Scene Two

_**Moments in Time**_**  
Act Two - Scene Two  
**

**Dead Air -**  
n. 1._ An__ unintended interruption in a broadcast during which there is no sound.  
2. A silence that should not exist._

* * *

Shizuru was gone.

This was not technically true. She could be one of three places and Natsuki had already eliminated two with a quick phone call to Yukino and Mai; so that just left the one place that Natsuki did not think she had the mental fortitude to venture towards at this given minute. That place was Shizuru's private oasis and Natsuki knew that she had no place there. It was unspoken between them – as Shizuru was far too closed-off of a person when it came to her own solitude. Natsuki knew of it, and yet she did not.

She'd sent Shizuru an email and a text message, explaining that she had had to go fetch Nao from the hospital because she had said that she would and she would not go back on her word. She did not say anything other than that, because she did not know what else to say. She could barely contain the hurt from Shizuru's absence this morning and she did not want her friend to know how much that gesture was both cruel and heartless considering how much Natsuki thought they needed each other after everything that had happened.

The message felt empty as she hit the send button and jammed her helmet back on her head; behind her Yuuki Nao groggily leaned back on the bike, tutting at the cool breeze and Natsuki's scowl.

"That is astoundingly passive aggressive of you." Nao's wicked grin was masked by the far-off look in her eyes. She pulled her jacket closer to her body and tugged at her long stockings that did little to prevent against the growing cold as if preoccupied with the events of the previous days.

It had been a foolish outfit to wear, but so typical of Nao that Natsuki did not even think twice about it. Nao would make herself miserable all on her own – no outside source was needed. It was strange to know this and yet not want to say anything about what was happening. Nao's own personal strife was too much for Natsuki to think about at the moment. She knew the time would come when she would be more able to – but now her own burdens weighed her down in a way that turned her inwards and closed off to the outside world.

Sometimes she hated the person it made her become.

Natsuki frowned. "It is rude to read over someone's shoulder." And it was. Where did Nao get off thinking that she could intrude on a life that she had tried so damn hard to ruin?

She knew the resentment was unfounded, but Nao had done things – they all had – that she had better regret. Perhaps that was what comes with the carnival, a sick sense of what was right and what was wrong – a perversion of their personalities to the point where they actively tried to exploit each other's weaknesses. Hurting in the most base and violent way possible.

Nao shrugged, exaggerated in motion and more to convey a point than anything else. Natsuki understood what she was getting at, but she would never admit it. Nao understood why it was that she was doing this, for she was in the exact same position with her mother.

The rejection on her face had been crystal clear for Natsuki even in her own state of mental unrest at Shizuru's seeming betrayal. Nao's mother had not taken kindly to her daughter's presence in her hospital room – the harrowed look and fearful twitch of Nao's fingers told Natsuki that. There was something deeply wrong with what had happened between them, something that Natsuki could not place.

Why were things all muddled up now? What was it about dying that made living so damn difficult?

The questions swirled around in her head with no real answer coming to the surface of the tumultuous ocean of her thoughts.

She was doomed to be forever questioning – as that was her place in this world. She was the seeker, and everyone around her held the answers to the questions she did not dare ask.

"You could, you know, talk to her," Nao said shortly – not looking at Natsuki. There was a hint of resentment in her voice, as though Natsuki had done something - another mystery - to offend her.

Natsuki was silent. It was not that easy. Nao knew that, they all knew that. Shizuru was an enigma even to Natsuki. "I can't do that." Her actions during the carnival had shocked them all – because Fujino Shizuru was capable of great – terrible – but great things when properly motivated.

"Why?" The question was unexpected, but it forced a thought into Natsuki's constantly questioning mind - why was it so hard to talk to Shizuru about these things? They had done things for eachother that normal people never even dreamed of - they had killed, had died, had come back to life in a phoenix's breath.

_Why are you afraid to even speak to me, Shizuru?_

"We have to get going." Natsuki said shortly. Nao had no place to talk to her about not talking about her issue. She had plenty of her own to deal with right now.

Nao looked resigned, but took the helmet that had been resting in her lap, and shoved it back onto her head. She slug her arms loosely around Natsuki's hips as she kicked the big back to life and righted it from its parked angle. While this was not her newest motorcycle, there was an old familiarity about this machine - and the want to go fast - to run away from her problems as fast as they could strike her. She could tell Nao to get off and just run away from this dead place of bad memories.

Shizuru would not know how to react to that.

Natsuki was fairly sure that that was why she was not willing to act the coward and actually be the one to do the running away. Shizuru was the fool and the coward and Natsuki hated her for it. She was so desperate for the companionship - for the seeming 'gift' of processing what had happened between them.

All she wanted was to be in those welcoming arms, to feel the warmth of that embrace so full of pure and powerful love.

It was not innocent love, and Natsuki was finally starting to understand what that meant. She was terrified of those lustful eyes and those hands that she remembered so clearly all over her body. Why was it so hard to face Shizuru, to ask her if she had actually had done what plagued her every waking thought since Suzushiro first blurted it out what seemed like ages ago.

So little time had passed, but it felt like decades.

Now Nao's arms were around her waist, clenched tightly together at her pelvis. It was odd, almost sexual how she felt in such a position - with only her body and her control and skill keeping Nao from teetering over the edge of fiery vehicular death. She held that sway over Nao in this one moment, but she knew that Shizuru felt the constant pull of her control pushing against Natsuki's carefully structured façade of calm.

It was strange, Shizuru being the one that felt out of control. She was usually the picture of composure, but Natsuki was not and idiot and saw the uncertainty and fear on her face the night before.

The parallels were uncanny, but she still felt alone – lost in the fact that Shizuru was gone.

The bike revved faster, her fingers twisting the throttle, urging the machine to faster, harder than ever before. Nao yelped as they accelerated, her grip on Natsuki's midsection tightening. She bit her lip to keep from squirming – the hands there – even if they were not the ones that she would want there, were driving her to the point of near distraction.

She was so preoccupied with what had happened between herself and Shizuru that she was allowing herself to get into these stupid, foolish, dumb positions. It was best, Natsuki reasoned, to ebb with the tide and just let what was going to happen, happen. Shizuru would come around – she always did.

Natsuki just hoped it would be in enough time to realize how they both felt about each other.

By the time she returned to her apartment after dropping Nao off at the hotel where many of the students who had formerly lived in the now destroyed dorms had been put up by the school, it was mid-afternoon. The day was still colder than what was seasonally expected – unlike the hot sweaty nights of only a few days before – when the heat of the battle had driven Natsuki into wardrobe choices that she even now was unsure of. She shivered as she locked up the bike, attaching it with a thick chain to the nearest wall and looking cautiously up and down the street for the young kids that had such a terrible habit of both checking out her bike and vying to steal it.

_Hooligans._

She had to call someone to come and fix her windows. She supposed that First District – or what was left of it, would come by at some point and do the repairs. She didn't want them in her house – or anywhere near her person. What they had done to her had been inhuman, but they had paid the consequences ten fold in Shizuru's rash actions. Natsuki hoped that no one would turn their vengeance on Shizuru for the loss of loved ones who did not return after the executive director's dying wish.

_Perhaps that is why she is hiding._

Hiding would do her no good, and Natsuki knew it. Shizuru could not stop them if they wanted to come for her. They were powerless now – normal humans once again; with only the scars of that great battle to prove validation in their very existence.

It was strange to feel worthless – _powerless -_ like this.

Maybe one day they would find forgiveness and salvation. Natsuki did not think it would come soon.

She dug in her pocket for her phone, and found herself staring moodily at her empty inbox. Shizuru had not thought to send an email back, telling her that she was all right and just needed time to think or something. Instead, she chose the silent route, the one that left Natsuki questioning.

This was far worse.

_Stupid, _Natsuki closed her phone with a snap, suddenly not caring all that much about Shizuru or her stupid email. Sometimes it was just not worth it to bother herself with the fact that she was so desperate to talk to her best friend.

She just needed to process, to develop an ability to actually comprehend what had happened between them. Shizuru, she supposed, did not actually need to do that – and all the more power to her, but fuck her for leaving this alone.

Natsuki did not pick her scabs, instead allowing them to heal completely the first time, but this was something that she simply could not leave alone.

They had to talk, that was all there was to it.

"If she doesn't call by the end of the day, I'm going to find her," she muttered to herself, tucking her phone inside her jacket and jamming her exterior key into her building's outside door. The lock stuck, as usual, and she scowled, jiggling the handle, coaxing the door the open. She wished her landlord would fix the door, but it would probably never get done. The door locked, which served its purpose nicely.

The light was still out on the stairs, so she stumbled a bit in the dark as she hurried up the two flights to her apartment. She just wanted to be home now – so she could think again. _So I can figure out where Shizuru could be._

Her apartment door was unlocked.

Natsuki crouched nudging the door open and peering into the half-light of her apartment. There was someone in there, and she was defenseless. Stealth was her only weapon at this time. She longed for her guns, for Duran, for the power that being a HiME had granted her. A double edged sword, and yet one that she was so desperate for now that she found herself subconsciously attempt to pull them from nothing to quell the churning feeling in the pit of her stomach. As silently as she could, she moved into her foyer – a figure sat, perched upon her couch.

She would recognize that head of hair in her dreams and after hundreds of years.

"Shizuru?" She stood, her hand slowly clenching into a fist.

A part of her was fearful of what was going to happen if Shizuru turned around. Would she see those dead, heartless eyes once more? Would it still be her friend standing there?

"I…" Shizuru's voice was thick, raspy, as though she'd been crying. "I tried to stay away. I'm no good for you Natsuki, I shouldn't be here."

_Funny, her accent sounds so much stronger when she's upset_.

Natsuki took a step forward, and then another. She stopped just short of Shizuru's still-turned back. "You left without a word." The hurt fell though her voice almost without bidding – and Natsuki found herself struggling to keep her voice from shaking. Her fists were clenched and she wanted to run. She had no place in such a conflict. Shizuru's personal strife should be her own, but Natsuki just wanted to be there for her.

_Why is this so fucking hard?_

Somehow, Natsuki found herself blaming Mai for all that had happened. Why wish for a second chance, when that chance was going to systematically ruin the lives of all parties involved. They were problem, broken people – perhaps it was better if they had just stayed dead with their sins.

"It was better that way." Shizuru's voice sounded distant.

Natsuki moved to sit down next to Shizuru. They were still not looking at each other. "Is this going to become a daily thing?"

The question was valid. If she was going to have to be forever handling the fact that Shizuru wanted to avoid her but found herself unable to stay away, Natsuki wanted fair warning. Would it ever change?

"I don't know." The answer was quiet, but finally, finally, Shizuru turned her tearstained face up to meet Natsuki's inquisitive gaze. There was fear in her eyes, as though she was terrified of what Natsuki's reaction to her lack of self-awareness would be. I don't think I can stay away, Natsuki." She turned away again. "But… But I think it's for the best."

Her hand was trembling, but Natsuki reached out and placed her own upon it. There was a question on her lips, but she was afraid to ask it. All that she wanted to do was throw her arms around Shizuru and tell her that it was okay.

But it was not okay.

Natsuki could not stand the thought of Shizuru trying to avoid her – for no reason other than a strange, self-imposed sense of justice.

"Why?" She asked quietly, her finger squeezing Shizuru's. It was so strange, so intimate. So different from their normal interactions.

She liked it.

Shizuru tried to pull her hand away, but Natsuki held fast, refusing to lose the one seeming connection between the two of them.

"I can't do this Natsuki." Shizuru said quietly.

The fell into a thoughtful silence then – one that Natsuki feared to break. She had so much that she wanted to say, to affirm to Shizuru, but the words would not come and with their retreat her courage went. She relaxed her grip on Shizuru's hand – her fingers burning seemingly searing trails of warmth across Natsuki's palm. This is so strange, so comforting, so completely wonderful.

She surprised herself then, the words blurting out before she'd even really had a chance to think about them and what she was actually saying to Shizuru. "Will you stay with me? Again?"

Shizuru said nothing for the longest time, her mind clearly elsewhere. Eventually she squeezed Natsuki's hand in confirmation. "Just this once." She said, but the tone of her voice and the happy sheen in her eye seemed to say otherwise.

* * *

Thank you all for your kind words of encouragement. I was a little saddened by the lack of feedback on the previous chapter - was it the length? The content? Please review and let me know.


	8. Act Two, Scene Three

_**Moments in Time**_**  
Act Two - Scene Three  
**

**Dead Air -**  
n. 1._ An__ unintended interruption in a broadcast during which there is no sound.  
2. A silence that should not exist._

* * *

They plunged back into silence. Sitting apart and yet together. It was so strange for her, usually they would at least talk – perhaps even banter a bit. This silence was unbearable in comparison to what they once had. Kuga Natsuki leaned back on the couch, her hand still unconsciously clenched around her companion's. It felt good there, safe and right – and yet so very wrong at the same time.

_I don't want to force this._

Force what, exactly, she did not know. Natsuki was almost afraid to breathe. She did not want to be in this position – afraid to act, to do anything really, around someone she had come to trust implicitly.

_What fools we are._

"If you hate me, I understand," Shizuru said quietly, her hair was hanging down, covering her face and obscuring it from Natsuki's view as she stared at the floor.

_I could never hate you._ The words would not come, Natsuki's tongue felt heavy, clumsy, in her mouth. She tried to speak, her mouth opening and closing several times before the words finally escaped her lips. "Why would you think that?"

Shizuru's personality lent itself to being self-deprecating. It was something that Natsuki was almost used to dealing with at this point in her life. Shizuru's depression and fear of being too close to people was enough to set anyone off – but Natsuki thought that they had finally moved past that. They certainly knew each other well enough.

But that was just the thing – they didn't really. Or at least she did not. Shizuru's actions during the carnival had completely blind-sided her. She was unable to predict actions, or ascertain truth in Shizuru's words. It was strange, bizarre. All she wanted was for things to go back the way that they were – before the carnival had ruined their lives for good.

Shizuru looked so lost, so alone. Her eyes not meeting Natsuki's even when she finally looked up. Her eyes were red – the skin around them angry from crying.

Natsuki found her tongue then, picking her words carefully, "Why are you so lost?" She asked. It was a strange question, but one that she felt Shizuru could actually answer honestly.

Natsuki herself felt lost, it was why she asked. She was afraid of messing up – of driving Shizuru away with her words and her questions and her uncertainty. The steam of her consciousness was enough to drive anyone insane; she did not want to inflict that upon Shizuru if she could avoid it. She was so terrified that Shizuru would reject her flat-out with an unreadable look on her face as she shook her head and openly admitted that maybe – just maybe – there was not enough between the two of them to keep them together.

But the questions, burning in her mind, bubbled up without provocation.

Natsuki knew she was a fool. A fool for whatever they had between themselves.

_A fool for love._

The idea terrified her.

Shizuru seemed to think about her answer for a few long, pregnant minutes, before answering in carefully chosen words. "This is not natural Natsuki, what I feel for you." She looked away again, the frizz in her hair catching the light in such a way that it shone almost golden. Natsuki wanted to reach out and touch it, to smooth away the frizz and tame the wild look in Shizuru's eyes. "The way that I acted…"

There was a certain power in words. Shizuru had killed for Natsuki, for their love and for her sick mind's twisted sense of what was right and what was wrong during the carnival. None of those people she had killed had come back – and mass-murder was not something to be openly discussed regardless of the company one kept.

"You did what you thought you had to do. We all did." The guilt of her own actions – of taking her own life because she saw no other solution to her problems – weighed down upon her. She had essentially promised Mai that she would kill herself and Shizuru if it helped to end the battle. Suicide did not have to be the answer then, as dramatics did not have to be now. It was all just confusion in her mind these days.

_Perhaps I was the fool then, but I saw no other way. _Shizuru's lips on hers were more than enough of a reminder in her one moment of clarity that day that death was not the only option. She had done it anyway though – as there was no alternative. Mai had to face Kanzaki – she had to defeat Mikoto and win the battle for them all.

Natsuki was not a tool of destiny like that.

"What I did was unforgivable."

Sometimes actions speak louder than words, Natsuki reached out and grabbed Shizuru's shoulder, jerking the taller girl's body in close to her own and holding her there. They had done this exactly once before and it felt so much nicer this time. Shizuru was warm, comfortable in all the correct places. It was a wonderful feeling to be pressed up against a living-breathing individual like this.

She felt angry then, irrational and uncomprehending at the people who had forced Shizuru into doing all those things that she so hated herself for doing. "Do not hate yourself," whispering words escaped her lips as she pressed her nose into Shizuru's hair. This was so sudden, so intimate.

It was suffocating, and yet she could not move away from Shizuru's warmth.

Fingers in her hair, drawing small circles on her back – an intimacy that she had never known. It was nice, and the feeling of contentment was amazing for Natsuki. Not since she was a child had she felt so safe and protected.

That was almost what bothered her. She did not think that it was appropriate for them to be acting like this without at least some sort of conversation with regards to what they were doing. They were young, and Natsuki still was not sure how she felt about this seeming connection that had been forged in fire between the two of them.

The fingers moved higher, caressing the back of her neck in a rhythmic dance. Natsuki wanted to kiss her again.

"What are we doing?" Her face was flushed and she struggled to force the thought down and away – out of sight and out of mind. Shizuru was her best friend – the one person who truly understood her. Kissing her was not an option and not something that she could even begin to wrap her brain around at this time. Shizuru was so close, oh so tantalizingly close.

When she said the words, Shizuru pushed back, away from Natsuki, scooting almost entirely across the couch. The rejection bore a bare hole in Natsuki's heart.

_You can still hurt me more easily than you could ever know._

She clawed at her hair, pulling it down, and then sweeping it back – out of her face. The tears seem to spring anew – but she held them back, watching Natsuki carefully through half-lidded eyes. Natsuki could see the tears, just barely retrained, behind her hair. They were glistening in the half-light of her living room. "I don't know."

Natsuki ran a hand through her hair, exasperated and upset. She wanted an answer that was not a non-answer at the same time. The distance that that avoidance created between them was indescribable and Natsuki hated it. It made her feel confused and lost and unhappy – for she was not sure that she was doing what was right when Shizuru avoided her gaze and did not answer her directly.

_Maybe I'm cracking up_, she thought. She shifted her weight around on the couch, sinking back into the cushions and drawing her knees up against her chest. "I can't do this Shizuru. You keep running away." Her tone was dejected, but the emotion cut through like a knife.

Shizuru was the one who kept running away. Hiding behind the excuses of insanity and the confusion of the carnival – things that Natsuki knew were not valid reasons to hide the way that she was hiding now.

_Why did you leave? Why did you leave me alone this morning? Why did you force me to wake up alone?_

She didn't know why she was afraid to wake up alone – but the fear pressed in upon her like the same sick feeling that she had felt for most of the carnival. She was so afraid of what was going to happen, so terrified that Shizuru was going to reject her outright – because what had happened between them was such that she could not ever see them together again.

Still, a large part of her wanted to run to Mai or Yukino or Nao or anyone other than Shizuru – because at least with them, things made sense. She knew where she stood. Natsuki sighed quietly and wrapped her arms around her knees, resting her chin on them and staring out at the broken windows of her apartment.

"You're the one who is doing that now." Shizuru's voice was quiet, yet the malice in it was clear even to Natsuki's untrained ear. She sounded like she had sounded when she had spoken to Nao on the roof of that building.

_Before I stepped in and saved her._

"What?" Natsuki responded, turning to look at Shizuru with a confused look in her eyes.

Shizuru's eyes were shining in the half-light. "You want me to leave because you are confused and you do not know what you want." Her tone was even, but the words were harsh.

Natsuki blinked. _Was she right? Am I just hiding in anger and spite?_

"I'm sorry." She whispered hurriedly. She was covering her ass now, like she had done when she had offered to take Nao to the hospital. She did not want to piss Shizuru off any more than she already had. She was terrified of Shizuru when she was angry.

They stared at each other for a long time. The urge that Natsuki had had to kiss Shizuru was now completely gone and replaced with confusion and fear. She did not know how best to approach this situation.

"I just can't do this right now." This was not exactly what she wanted to say, but she still needed time to sort out her feelings and what exactly this game that she and Shizuru were playing actually meant in the big scheme of things. Why were they consistently messing with each other and leading each other on? This was what it was – she was being lead on.

_I am a gigantic baby about this shit too._

She could not stand the idea of being alone with Shizuru if all that connected them was a want to avoid what had happened between them. It was strange, to think the reason they were so connected was because they were so apart. They could not stand to be around each other – and yet they were so desperate to be together. The dichotomy was confusing for someone of Natsuki's distracted mental state.

She hated that she could not concentrate when Shizuru was around, hated that she felt so confused and lost. Why could they not occupy the same space right now? Why did she want to run away from here as fast as she could? She did not know where she would go but there was a distinct sense of panic in her mind as she thought about the idea of staying with Shizuru.

She had the worst case of cold feet in the world, it seemed.

It was strange, as she looked at Shizuru, so obviously upset – Natsuki found herself without the want to comfort her. It was as though the want to be anywhere near her was completely gone. Natsuki wondered how her mind could change so quickly. It was strange and alien, this feeling of avoidance.

The crux of the issue was that she still remembered those lips upon her own and she frankly was not sure how it made her feel. There was too much uncertainty in every one of her actions that had lead up to the fact that she was now squirming in her seat at the thought of kissing her best friend.

"Neither can I." Shizuru's accent come through thick and hard. It was almost incomprehensible, but Natsuki had long-since trained herself to understand it even in the worst of Shizuru's times. This was the worst that it had ever been, by far.

She hated the distance and the silence between them now. It was strange, bizarre, and unpleasant. Perhaps in time she could grow used to it, but for now it was simply a reminder of everything that they could not have.

Natsuki knew that it could never come to pass that they actually find each other in the way that they had come to stare at one another these days. It was too personal a commitment and something that she herself was deeply afraid of. She did not know what Shizuru had done that night when she was hurt, nor did she want to know.

She wanted to trust Shizuru, but Suzushiro's words and meltdown had struck a chord with her – and she was afraid that there was some truth in the blonde woman's hysterics.

The thought terrified her and made the urge to run in her even stronger.

"I can't stay away from you." The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them and she almost instantly regretted them. She did not want to give Shizuru false hope, she did not want to do anything that might compromise the fragility of whatever it was that was starting to form between them. They couldn't go on like this – but Natsuki knew that she would be unable to stay away.

Shizuru was too beautiful and intoxicating for her not be the focal point of Natsuki's attentions. She felt lost when she stared into those hurt eyes, and she felt terrified knowing what her body and mind wanted so desperately from Shizuru. She was afraid to ask, afraid to move.

Afraid to do fucking anything.

She gathered up the loose fabric in her old couch, twining her fingers into it as she sighed quietly. "It scares me, Shizuru, how much I want to be around you."

Shizuru said nothing, still staring off into space through Natsuki's plastic trash bag covered windows. It was as though she did not hear Natsuki's proclamation.

_Perhaps, _Natsuki thought tiredly, _it is better to simply not speak of these things._

**End Act Two**

* * *

Thank you all for your kind words of encouragement. The reviews I received were most fantastic! Please keep it up, I know it's slow moving, but this story is told at a very intentional pace. Please continue to enjoy it as Act Three begins.


	9. Act Three, Scene One

**Moments in Time**

**Act Three, Scene One**

**Di·as·po·ra** - /daɪˈæspərə/ dahy-as-per-uh] –_noun_

1. any group migration or flight from a country or region; **dispersion.**

2. any group that has been dispersed outside its traditional homeland.

* * *

They fell into a pattern then; one would try to leave and then return, unable to extricate herself from the situation that plagued the two of their existences. Kuga Natsuki knew that it was because they were too connected, and even though the HiME were starting to split up and stay away from each other as they tried with the cope with what had happened to them. They were a broken and fragmented group – not the sort who were going to stay together in the first place, but it was striking how little Natsuki saw of some of the HiME as the days turned into weeks after the carnival.

Three weeks later, Natsuki found herself sitting on an abandoned beach with Mai and Mikoto, looking out at the burnt-out bridge that was now under construction and the ferry that was only just now starting to make trips across the bay to the mainland. It was idyllic, peaceful here; the hollow remains of the bridge that Alyssa Sears' fake child had destroyed the only reminder of what had happened in this land.

Natsuki was glad for the peace and for the companionship. She had been lacking in both as of late and longed for the easy companionship that came with simply having friends. It was late January now, and the cold was biting against her leather jacket and jeans. The sun was warm, but it did little to take the chill from the air as they sat in awkward silence, longing for days when this hadn't been so hard. She wondered when she had become so complete broken of human interaction. If that had come before or after the Carnival of Souls that ruined her life. Mai was supposed to be easy to talk to, but the awkward silence pressing in around them was all-consuming.

"You and the… ah… Student Council President are still doing okay?" Mai asked awkwardly. She still would not call Shizuru by her name, or even her family name, despite Natsuki saying that it was alright. It was not her place to judge anyway, Mai could say what she wanted, but she wanted there to be more of a sense of security between them. They had been through a lot together after all. The awkwardness that Mai felt, Natsuki reasoned, was actually fairly normal for someone who was unused to people like Natsuki reasoned she was perceived now.

She was one of them, those girls that your mother (had hers not betrayed her trust, name and honor) told you to stay away from because there was no way that your innocence could stay intact around them. They had designs on your body - on your pure and girlish affection for them.

When it was put that way, Natsuki realized that Mai must think her a monster now.

_Probably because I truly am._

She shook her head slowly, marking the negative to Mai's question. No, she was not doing well with Shizuru. They had not been alright since before the carnival had begun and Mai was very much aware of that fact. Natsuki had laid bare her soul the night after Shizuru had killed Julia and attempted to take Nao's life too – and Mai was just being infuriatingly polite about it now.

They all had to stop pretending that all that shit that they went through together did not happen. They were survivors of a storm where not everyone had made it, they had to make the most of the chances that they were given.

Natsuki ran a hand through her hair; it was dirty, tangled at the bottom. She'd come here after rolling out of bed at nearly noon – alone once more as Shizuru always made sure to leave before Natsuki woke. She wished that Shizuru would stay, even though they had wordlessly agreed that it was too soon for that. They couldn't sleep apart, but they had to pretend that they were still angry at each other, full of hate and lies and deception.

Natsuki wouldn't ask about that night, Shizuru wouldn't say anything about the gun that Natsuki had bought a few days after the carnival had ended.

_Domestic bliss,_ Natsuki thought bitterly, thinking of the multitude of questions she wanted to ask Shizuru, the laundry list of grievances she had yet to air. That time would come later, when they had rebuilt their lives like the land of Fuuka rebuilt its air of mystery and ancient buildings. Brick by impossible brick, with a mortar of lies and deceit in between to mask the past.

"We don't talk, Mai. We just sit in that fucking room together and we refuse to speak." Natsuki looked down at her hands and sighed deeply. It felt like an admission of failure, to allow themselves to fall prey to such doubt and insecurity. She was so damn insecure about everything in her life already; one more thing would not hurt her running total of failure.

Shizuru would come around, eventually. Natsuki knew that she couldn't stay away, that she wouldn't leave. She couldn't. They were connected far too deeply to just dismiss the other out of hand like that. She couldn't find the strength, the words to tell Shizuru how much she needed her, maybe she was the coward and the failure.

Mai raised an eyebrow skeptically, a frown crossing her face. "At all?" she asked. She didn't look good when she frowned; Natsuki thought bitterly, the carnival had ruined Mai as well.

The smiling girl who had no idea what she was getting into when she came to this god-forsaken place was long gone, replaced by a worried girl who had changed far more than the rest of them. Natsuki watched Mai watch Mikoto feed bread to the gulls that had gathered by their bench, chirping incessantly and vying for more food.

They had all changed.

She couldn't talk to Mai any more either, it seemed. Mai didn't understand what had happened between Natsuki and Shizuru, and Natsuki had never elaborated on the events that had transpired between them. It was their battle, and Mai had no place in it despite the fact that Natsuki would have loved another person to talk to about her problems.

She didn't want Mai to know about that night, the one that she'd left out of even that soul-crushing moment of sadness and defeat. Mai didn't need to know about that, about how Natsuki, so full of fear and betrayal had run before she knew all the details. She didn't need to know how much of a coward Natsuki really was.

This was why she and Shizuru didn't talk. Natsuki had come to the conclusion of this fact in late December, just after Shizuru's birthday. There'd been a slice of cake with a candle in it on the table for her when she'd come in later that night, and Natsuki had given her a framed picture of the two of them from the summer before that Chie had taken when they weren't looking.

They had been at peace, leaning against the railing at Suzushiro's summer home after that botched mission to her mother's old office and Natsuki's humiliation in front of Kanzaki and Shizuru herself. Shizuru's head was thrown back in carefree laughter and Natsuki's arm was slung around her shoulder – a gesture of affection that had caught the attention of the camera of Chie in the first place. Looking at the ease of that interaction had driven her into a depressive funk when the bespectacled girl had returned to campus a few days before Shizuru's birthday and had shown it to her.

Shizuru had said she would treasure it, and Natsuki did not doubt it. Shizuru was sentimental and Natsuki denied that she was. It had been a nice gift, she had thought, and the tentative kiss that Shizuru had placed on her cheek in thanks had plagued her thoughts ever since. Her lips had been warm that time, warm and comforting and welcoming.

Natsuki wanted more. She would never ask - Shizuru had taken far more than Natsuki had been willing to give – but those lips drove her to distraction. She couldn't resist them, they stole her breath and sustained her for days at a time.

She found her voice, answering after what she knew was too long a pause. "It is empty," she shrugged, leather on her shoulders creaking against her ears as she turned a green-eyed gaze to meet Mai's own stare. The words felt heavy on her tongue, but she forced them out regardless of how awkward she felt asking, "Do you and Tate?"

She hadn't seen that much of Tate, since the carnival. He'd been spending time with his 'little sister' who was not very little anymore and didn't get that he wasn't interested in her that way. Natsuki thought that his encouraging her girlish crush on him was inappropriate but she was really not in any position to speak, sleeping with the woman that she refused to admit caring about.

It was a relationship of convenience, and yet they were so dependent on each other that it was almost debilitating to be apart. Tate Yuuichi should have been able to extract himself from whatever spell Munakata Shiho had on him _years_ ago, and yet he crawled back to her for some dumb reason time and time again. Natsuki had always known him to be an idiot.

Mai's idiot, but an idiot none the less.

Mai sucked on her teeth, staring past Natsuki into the distance and the cranes on the bridge. She had helped to destroy that bridge, cutting off the city from much needed resources. The guilt was apparent on her face as she stared at the burnt-out ruin of the bridge. Natsuki wondered if there was any way that she could tell Mai that it wasn't her fault. That everything wasn't her fault, that everyone had fucked up colossally to land them in such a position.

The words wouldn't come, and Mai answered her question in a tone that said that she didn't really believe what she was saying. "Not really, no. He has to fix what happened with Shiho, she hates me and he doesn't like it."

"I miss before," Natsuki answered with a sad smile. It hurt to smile, her face had been twisted downward so often these days that it was hard to move it upwards in that eternal gesture of camaraderie and contentment. "It was easier back then."

Mai nodded her agreement, her eyes back on the bridge. "Me too."

_Look at me, not at the damn bridge,_ Natsuki thought angrily, knowing that Mai was too caught up in her own thoughts to realize that Natsuki was crying out for positive interaction. Mai was the one person who still would talk to her without snide comments or hidden meanings behind their words. Natsuki was not a mind-reader and between Nao and Shizuru, she felt as though she was trapped, unable to understand the world around her.

Mikoto had run out of bread a few minutes ago and had run off to the public trashcan up the path from the bench where they now sat to throw it away. She trotted up and settled herself down between Mai and Natsuki on the bench, her eyes bright and shining. This hadn't affected her at all. She had done what she had had to do for her brother, and then it was over.

Natsuki envied her compartmentalization and the ease at which she could bring a smile to her face that went all the way up to her eyes.

After spending a few moments snuggling up against Mai (Natsuki rolled her eyes over Mikoto's head at Mai), Mikoto turned intelligent eyes to Natsuki and asked in an all-together too-conversational tone, "Hey Natsuki, how is Nao?"

_The fuck should I know?_ Natsuki thought bitterly. She hadn't spoken to Nao that much since she'd first taken the red-haired girl to see her mother at the hospital across the prefecture. Nao had seen that she was going to spend all of her time with Shizuru and had wanted no part in that. They spoke at school, if passing nods and exchanging insults counted as speaking these days. Nao had been so close to opening up too, to actually _talking_ about what was going on deep down in that devious spider's brain of her's.

It wasn't Natsuki's place to ask. She knew that Nao was finding her way to see her mother now, and that the time she spent there was growing more and more pronounced as her mother rehabilitated from limb atrophy or whatever the fuck happened to you when you were in a coma for that long. Nao would talk when she was ready, Natsuki would listen, and try to not judge her from past actions.

Shizuru did enough of that for the two of them.

"She's fine, Mikoto, spending time with her mom." Natsuki said, trying to smile back at Mikoto and failing. Her face turned upwards in a painful gesture that hurt the corners of her eyes.

She didn't want to lie to Mikoto, because Nao probably wasn't fine. None of them were, but if Mikoto wanted to delude herself into thinking that they were alright, than far be it for Natsuki to deny her that delusion.

"Oh, like me and Ani-ue?" Mikoto asked, eyes wide and uncomprehending.

_She had to have been dropped on her head as a child. _Natsuki thought darkly, her hands shoved deep in her jacket pockets and a scowl playing across her lips. _You're almost in high school, _act_ like it._

Mai nodded, "Exactly, Mikoto, this is a time to heal."

* * *

Sorry for the delay on this, I hit a block that was really hard to write around. Hope you all enjoy it. :)


	10. Act Three, Scene Two

**Moments in Time**

**Act Three, Scene Two**

**Di·as·po·ra** - /daɪˈæspərə/ dahy-as-per-uh] –_noun_

1. any group migration or flight from a country or region; **dispersion.**

2. any group that has been dispersed outside its traditional homeland.

* * *

Once, in a time when things were better and they were happier, Natsuki sat on the balcony of Shizuru's dorm room. It was late summer, and sweat gleamed on her skin as she tried to get away with wearing as little clothing as possible around her friend. Her tank-top was pushed up under her breasts, exposing a pale expanse of stomach that she was endeavoring to darken to match the deep tan on her arms and legs from the misadventure she and Mai had had to her mother's abandoned offices. Cut off jean shorts and lemonade on the table next to her – complete perfection.

Shizuru, always more composed and never looking as though it wasn't humid as all hell and at least ninety degrees; was flipping through college pamphlets with the same disinterest she treated the student council meetings that Natsuki had (pointedly not) avoided attending. Moral support, Shizuru had said, Natsuki thought it was more like death by boredom. She didn't know how Shizuru did it; it always astounded her - the amount of patience that the sandy-haired woman possessed. Suzushiro was unbearable when Natsuki did not have to _see_ her, let alone interact with her.

Shizuru had to be a masochist, yes, that was what it had to be.

She took a sip of her lemonade, pulling one of the brochures towards her, ignoring the small ring of condensation from Shizuru's tea. Shizuru'd conceded the heat and had chilled it, much to Natsuki's private amusement, as Shizuru did not like cold drinks, apparently. The heat was unbearable, and it was an effort to even form the thought that it would take voice the question that had been on her lips all morning.

Natsuki tried to sound disinterested, like she couldn't care less about where Shizuru decided to complete her education. It was far more complicated than that, the knot of emotion in her stomach as she faked nonchalance and asked with a far-too-fake-sounding calm, "Which ones will you take?"

Shizuru seemed surprised that Natsuki had asked, Natsuki had no idea why. It was her right as a friend to take interest in Shizuru's life. She didn't want Shizuru going anywhere far away. They had to preserve this easy silence, the wordless communication of Shizuru's slightly downturned lips and narrowed eyebrows. There was confusion clearly there – and something else that Natsuki had never been able to fully explain away in words.

She pushed the thought hurriedly out of her head, not wanting to trouble herself with those thoughts now when she was in the process of finally working Shizuru into an embarrassed silence. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

Natsuki raised her eyebrows over her drink in response and inclined her head to the pile of pamphlets on the table, wordlessly adding, "_Well?"_

Shizuru's fingers splayed over the table, damp from the dew on her glass, sticking to the glossy photos showing fake, happy people. She had looked thoughtful in that moment, chewing on her lip – staring straight at Natsuki, a challenge in her voice as she answered. "Kyoto has a good school – my father went there and he wants me to take that test."

Natsuki's triumph at victory over Shizuru in the game of embarrassment suddenly felt hollow. She did not want Shizuru to go back to Kyoto – away from here. She couldn't keep her safe there, First District could find her and use their friendship against Natsuki. She couldn't let that happen, couldn't let Shizuru leave.

Her fingers found the pamphlet with the familiar logo on it, buried under the other pamphlets like an afterthought. She picked it up and flipped through it, unable to contain the low whistle when she saw the required scores to get into the school. Natsuki looked up at Shizuru then, question on her lips. "And Fuuka?"

_Would you stay for me?_

Shizuru smiled, her eyes shining with something that Natsuki couldn't place. It was like a promise on the breath of a sudden rash impulse. "If I pass and they would have me."

* * *

This is a short aside, but important to the overall perception of the story.


	11. Act Three, Scene Three

**Moments in Time – Act Three, Scene Three**

**Di·as·po·ra** - /daɪˈæspərə/ dahy-as-per-uh] –_noun_

1. any group migration or flight from a country or region; **dispersion.**

2. any group that has been dispersed outside its traditional homeland.**  
**

* * *

January turned into February quickly, and even sooner into March. As the cherry trees started to bloom, Kuga Natsuki threw herself into her studies with desperate hopes of not failing the classes she'd neglected to attend during that hectic time. She'd missed far too much content and there was only so much that Mai and the others could help her make up. She was struggling, desperate for knowledge of what she knew to be right and true. Everything that she could learn in books was fact, no one could dispute it, there were no hidden meanings in the fact that two plus two equaled four. It gave her some semblance of control over her out of control life.

Even in her desperate search for knowledge, it was only in sleep that she felt the most at peace, with Shizuru's quietly slumbering body curled up next to her. Natsuki knew that this illusion would only last so long, that soon she would be forced to face the fact that Shizuru was graduating from school, that soon she would be gone.

Shizuru had sat the entrance exams soon after her birthday. Natsuki had gone down to watch them work on that burnt-out husk of a bridge while Shizuru took the one for Fuuka – the one that Natsuki had forced her into taking. Guilt had filled her as she watched Shizuru back herself a small lunch to eat during the examination's break. She couldn't let Shizuru do something so selfless for her – just because Natsuki could not stomach the idea of Shizuru leaving.

And yet she'd let Shizuru go. She hadn't said anything, she'd just sat, paralyzed with fear. Studying that day had been a complete waste and Natsuki had hated herself for it. She'd sat on that beach for hours, seeing but not really seeing, thinking of Shizuru and wondering why it was that they could never be happy together.

When she'd come home, Shizuru had said that the test had gone already, but not spectacularly well.

Natsuki had secretly hoped that she'd failed, so at least _one_ of them could get away from the land of Fuuka.

Almost as soon as she'd thought it though, she'd regretted it. Shizuru had to stay, Natsuki would not be able to survive otherwise.

And so, to cope, she'd pushed herself even further in school, struggling to bring her marks up so that she would not have to repeat another year. She couldn't stomach the idea of being in the same class as Nao, no matter how potentially entertaining the classes would be. For once in her life, Natsuki actually had friend about whom she cared deeply, several actually, if you counted Mai and the others. Social interaction came easier to her now, and she relished the opportunity to actually interact with her peers instead of avoiding them.

Mai and the others helped her with school, and soon, the sting of Shizuru leaving before she woke up every morning did not hurt so much.

Natsuki could almost pretend the pain had gone until that day in mid-March when she'd awoken to see Shizuru still sleeping next to her.

The sight had frozen her, stolen her breath away and made Natsuki want to drift back into sleep and pretend that she had never returned to wakefulness to catch sight of Shizuru's misstep. She inhaled slowly and quietly.

Shizuru was graduating today, the ceremony was at noon and no one had class because of it. It was nine-thirty now, they could lie in bed for a few more minutes before Natsuki was going to be forced to wake Shizuru up.

She inhaled once more, watching as the small lock of hair that had fallen over Shizuru's nose in sleep fluttered up and down as she breathed quietly. She looked so peaceful in sleep, so blissfully unaware of everything that had happened between them. Natsuki wanted to capture Shizuru's relaxed face and keep it in a box somewhere, where no one could touch it but her.

Shizuru stirred then, and Natsuki shifted to reach over and carefully brush her fingertips against that lock of hair. Her voice was still thick with sleep and she swallowed before speaking. "Hey, wake up," it sounded so lame, so completely and utterly _unromantic._

Natsuki cringed and pulled her hand away as Shizuru rolled onto her back and slowly opened her eyes. They were clear, as though she had not just spent the past hours sleeping.

_Did she even sleep_? Natsuki wondered, shifting into a more upright position, propped up on her elbow, acutely aware of the fact that she was wearing very little under her tank-top and shorts. How easy would it be to just lean forward, kiss Shizuru, and take all her enjoyment from that moment? To take retribution from Shizuru's foolish actions during that time, to claim it roughly with her lips, it would be so easy.

Natsuki allowed herself to slump back down on the bed, pushing the thoughts out of her mind as she tried not to blush. She wasn't succeeding, and was thankful that Shizuru was not looking at her.

She almost wished that Shizuru _would_. To be caught in such an action would make something happen, it had to.

"What time is it?" Shizuru asked, her voice betraying her tiredness.

Natsuki rolled away to stare at her alarm clock, blinking at the digital readout. Ten. Shizuru had to be at school in half an hour.

_Damnit,_ Natsuki thought. _ I had meant to wake her up before this. _"If you don't leave soon, you'll be late to your own party," She said, pulling the blanket back over herself and preparing to go back to sleep.

"Natsuki…" Shizuru sat up, staring off into the distance. "You're not coming in today?"

Natsuki pulled the blanket over her head and muttered, half into the pillow, "Just go, I'll see you at school."

All of a sudden the hurt and the humiliation of the carnival of souls came back in full force. She knew that Shizuru had just been teasing her, and that it meant nothing. But she had been trying so hard to be better and for Shizuru to just _assume _meant that nothing had really changed.

She longed to say that she was not that person anymore and that Shizuru should respect her for trying to better herself. Their fragile calm, however, was so precarious that she did not want to risk losing it to truly speak her mind.

The mattress dipped as Shizuru stood. Natsuki peeked out from under the covers to see her hurriedly pull the shirt that Natsuki had loaned her months ago back over her exposed bottom and begin to walk away. "Alright," Shizuru said, not turning as Natsuki let out a quiet 'eep' and hurriedly pulled the covers back over her head.

She turned then, looking over her shoulder with a sly smile on her face. She had known, that that… that evil woman had put on that show on purpose! Natsuki silently fumed as Shizuru leaned over and whispered, laughter clearly evident in her voice, "Thank you for waking me up."

Into the pillow, Natsuki groaned.

Shizuru showered and left, closing the door quietly behind her. Natsuki waited until her cheeks stopped burning and she could get the image of Shizuru's ass out of her head before coming out from under the bedcovers. She felt like a pervert, like she was defiling Shizuru's good name somehow by thinking about her in _that_ way.

Was she like that? The sort of girl that you had to stay away from, because she would steal your virtue?

She didn't know.

All she knew is that she was deeply, deathly, and horribly, in love with Fujino Shizuru.

Needless to say, her shower was cold that morning.

Natsuki hurried up to the school, the ceremony drawing crowds of parents to the school. She hated the people, a useless crush of normalcy, and cut off the main path as soon as she could. Here the spring air was cooler, and she felt as though she could finally breathe again.

She paused, inhaling and exhaling in the cool air, when the smell of freshly turned earth reached her nose. Someone was gardening near her, and Natsuki stepped towards the sunny corner near the edge of the main school building and came face to face with Sakomizu, her sometimes-informant.

He shrugged at her and turned his attention back to the flowers that he was carefully taking out of their greenhouse six-packs, and placing into little holes that he was making with a trowel. Natsuki settled against a tree nearby and waited, he was sure to have _something_ to say to her about her marks.

He had been on her since the carnival had ended to bring them up, and she had been trying.

His curly hair bobbed up and down as he moved, "You realize that if you don't bring your marks up substantially on your finals, there is a good chance that you'll be held back because of all your absences this year, Kuga-san."

Natsuki flinched. She had hoped it wasn't quite that bad.

"I've been studying," she said lamely.

He laughed, "And your attendance has greatly improved!" He turned to smile at her over his shoulder, "I hope that you can pass so I won't have to be your teacher anymore!"

Natsuki rolled her eyes, sarcasm cutting through her voice like the bullets she had been so willing to shoot at all that had opposed her just months ago. "You're a wonderful person, sensei."

"I do try." He laughed.

From across the clearing there was a sound of branches breaking underfoot and Natsuki glanced around. Seeing no one, she thought nothing of it, until a voice from just off the main path cut clearly through the trees, "Ara… Natsuki is in danger of failing? Perhaps then I shouldn't graduate either."

Natsuki turned, her movements jerky, to see Shizuru holding her diploma in outstretched hands, a wicked smile on her face. Horror filled her mind as Shizuru let some of the most important documents she'd ever earned or received fall to the ground with a clatter.

Her hands free, Shizuru clapped them together and Natsuki swallowed, desperate for her to shut up and not say anything else. This was getting embarrassing, "I can help Natsuki study."

"Idiot!" Natsuki yelled, crossing to Shizuru in three quick strides and picking up her diploma and inspecting it for any damage. She handed it back to Shizuru and pulled her away from Sakomizu and his flower garden, into the trees and away from the more well-traveled walkway.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, Natsuki not really sure what to say. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to react to Shizuru teasing her the way she had been doing all day. Things had been so strained recently, it was as though something had changed and suddenly they were able to be themselves again.

She wasn't sure she should even say anything; she didn't want to ruin the moment. If Shizuru was being normal, she didn't want to push her back to where they had been.

That horrible time.

She didn't want to think about it.

"You weren't serious…" she said at length.

Shizuru tapped her diploma roll pensively on her chin, "You are failing, I won't have you be two years behind." She seemed quite serious and Natsuki looked at her sideways for a moment before shrugging. _Best not to push it._

"Shizuru…" She whined quietly. Well, she wasn't above whining a little bit to get her way. She did not need Mai being a studying task master all over her if Shizuru was going to do it and she certainly didn't want both of them getting up to that. The idea was horrifying, she would never have a social life again.

Not that she had had much of them to begin with.

"This is important for your future, Natsuki." Shizuru said seriously, her gaze resolutely fixed on a point somewhere in the distance, away from where they were standing.

_Why won't you look at me?_

Natsuki knew why she wouldn't, that they were basically flirting in everything but name. That there was so much between them that was left unsaid that maybe it was better if they just _didn't_ talk about it. That they didn't look at each other when they could help it, that nothing every happened.

She sighed, running her hand through her hair, "I know… I just wish…"

"Me too. I still long for that oblivion."

Color drained from Natsuki's face, how could she even think something like that, let alone say it? To want to be dead again? How could she even dare think such a thing? "Don't." Natsuki said through tightly clenched teeth.

"Mn?" Shizuru asked, turning to face Natsuki for the first time, her expression schooled carefully blank.

"Promise me you won't go back there. Not without me, Shizuru." It was a plea, desperate and pathetic, but not something that she could easily take back. She had to make Shizuru know, to make her see, that there was nothing in the world that was more important to her than Fujino Shizuru.

Shizuru's face pulled downwards into a frown and she looked away. Natsuki reached out and grabbed her shoulder, pulling her close and into a barrier of personal space they so rarely broke. Shizuru's body was warm against her own, they fit together so perfectly. Natsuki wanted to turn Shizuru in her arms and kiss her, the heat growing deep inside her and blossoming across her cheeks as she thought about the idea of kissing Shizuru.

Her voice sounded choked with tears as she pleaded with her best friend, "_Please." _

_For me._

Shizuru nodded curtly and pulled away from Natsuki, her fingers trailing down Natsuki's arm until just their hands were touching. "I promise." Her tone was earnest and Natsuki hoped she was being truthful. "Come on, Tokiha is having a picnic."

**End Act Three**

_So glad that this act is done. I felt as though a lot of real healing for Shizuru and Natsuki could not come when they were both in school together, so this is the beginning of the next stage in their relationship from here on out._


	12. Act Four

**Moments in Time – Act Four, Single Scene**

**con·fes·sion - /**k_uh_ n-**fesh**-_uh_ n/ - **_noun_**

**1. **acknowledgment; avowal; **admission**: a confession of incompetence.

**2. **acknowledgment or **disclosure of sin** or sinfulness, especially to a priest to obtain absolution.

**3. **_something that is confessed._

* * *

Brown leather met her fingertips and Kuga Natsuki exhaled quietly as she stood in the university bookstore, contemplating the book before her. It seemed so completely alien, to want to buy such an object. She had never been one of those girls, like Tokiha, like any of her peers. She did not feel compelled to chronicle her live in long hand, writing down her struggles and her triumphs as though a single leather-bound book could somehow grant her absolution from her sins. No, she was never that sort of a girl.

"You should get it," Natsuki almost flinched as Shizuru's fingertips brushed up against the small of her back, jerking her from her reverie. She stepped forward and to the left, trying to get away from the hand that was now resting on her unprotected back.

They were trying. They were trying so hard, but Natsuki could never quite bring herself to go that final step. She remembered Shizuru's hands on her, her lips and her body. Warm to the touch, and Natsuki stared down at her feet. She was wearing sandals; the heat of the summer in the Land of Fukka was enough to drive even her sneaker-loving soul to drastic measures. She bit her lip and clutched the notebook to her chest. This was too much. It was all too much.

Natsuki had been avoiding this particular moment for so long. They'd told her, one after another, that she needed help. That speaking to someone outside of her small circle of friends was the only way that she was ever going to heal. They'd offered her their best professionals and Natsuki had turned them all down. She couldn't let them, let _First District_, after all that they had done to her, pull her back into their circle of lies.

The doctors would do that. She'd come to this conclusion with Mai after they'd both been offered help. Natsuki would take their blood money, weighted with their guilt and their trying to make amends. She would have nothing else to do with them.

The brown leather that she had clenched in between her fingers warmed as she held the journal close to her. It was expensive, _nice,_ not something that Natsuki would normally find herself spending money on. First District had seen to it that she would never want for anything, and she hated them for it. It was a bribe, to keep her happy and to keep her quiet. She was surprised that they allowed her to make the decision to take it on her own. She was surprised that there were still enough of them to make such a decision.

Shizuru, she thought, had taken care of them.

The journal in her hands still felt frivolous. Her wallet was burning a hole in her pocket, First District's blood money sitting in an account untouched until after Natsuki sat her university entrance exams in a year. "Maybe I will," she said petulantly. She'd stepped away from Shizuru and concerned eyes that so reminded Natsuki of blood.

_Still…_

She was trying to move past it, trying to not let it affect her in the way that it still did. It was easy to chew on her lip and stare off into the distance and just push past the idea of what had happened back then. She didn't know, she didn't want to know – but it was eating her from the inside out.

"If that is what you want," Shizuru replied primly, and turned her attention back to the book in her hands. This story was full of things that drew neither of their attention. They'd stumbled in here to escape the heat for a moment, a welcome reprieve of cool air and burning questions that left her mind racing for answers to questions that Natsuki wasn't quite ready to ask. Shizuru is there, standing with her hand no longer burning the truth into Natsuki's back.

Maybe they were both just fumbling forward into the darkness that clouds both of their hearts.

The journal felt warm in Natsuki's hands, and the leather smelled of change and a future that maybe was as bright as she desperately wanted it to be. The past clouded their every action in the present, and Natsuki found herself reaching for Shizuru's hand, where it had been dropped to her side. It took a moment, a desperate moment of throwing all of her future into this one simple gesture for their fingers to brush against each other. They have to talk about what happened someday, but today was not that day.

"Na-" Shizuru began, her voice as startled as the expression on her face looked. She stared down at their joined hands for a long and drawn out moment before glancing back up to meet Natsuki's questioning gaze. She wanted this to be okay, and desperately so. She didn't know if she could stomach moving forward into an uncertain future alone.

"We should go," Natsuki replied. "I'll get this some other time." She set the journal back on the shelf where she'd found it, the plastic wrapping on the book behind it crinkling a little as she made sure it was straight. In another life she'd be one of those girls, but now she had a question that could not be asked in the words that Natsuki dared to utter.

To hear tell of something was one thing, and Suzushiro had made very sure that she had heard tell of what had transpired that night that Natsuki cared not to think about. The night when her life was poised on a razor's edge, about to tip forward and plummet into certain death. The night she tried so desperately to forget.

Shizuru followed without a word as the quiet flapping sound of Natsuki's flip-flops connected with the soles of her feet. The noise was welcome to the ringing silence in Natsuki's ears. The constant question and confusion she could never shake. She wanted to ask, she had to ask.

It could not be done.

They died in the dead cold of winter, their bodies aching for a spring that would not yet come. Now the world was born anew and the summer heat gripped them once more. A lump gathered at the pit of Natsuki's stomach and she wanted to pitch forward and reach – her breakfast rebelling against her stomach and attempting to burst forth once more. They were dead.

And now they were alive again.

The path back to her new apartment, the one that she kept secret from all but her most trusted of friends, was quiet and up a steady hill that lead up and over the city. Looking out over the bay, Natsuki paused, her hand shading her eyes as she stared out across the water. The bridge was nearly complete – soon the land of Fuuka would be open once more to travel.

"Ara," Shizuru breathed quietly beside her. "It's nearing completion."

Natsuki glanced out of the corner of her eye at Shizuru, her lips turning downwards slightly as she watched the person who had effortlessly come to mean the most to her in the entire world take in the scene before her with the same calm that she did everything else in life. It was strange to think of Shizuru now, and to know the person that she truly was – who First District and the carnival had driven her to be.

The bridge was just a bandage, hastily added. There was no healing done with the repair of it – simply erasing a scar that would always be there, trapped in memory and time.

She let go of Shizuru's hand.

The hill before them seemed to go on for miles, and the sun beat down over their heads. Natsuki shifted in the heat and tugged on her shirt collar. She wished she'd worn a hat – or at least had bothered to wear practical shoes.

"It won't fix anything," she whispered watching as a crane slowly swung its boom out over the bay and lowered something onto a waiting boat. "Just bring in more trouble."

Shizuru turned and looked at Natsuki then, her eyes unreadable in the brilliant sunlight. The hair at her temples was frizzing and there was a slight sheen of sweat across her forehead. Natsuki wanted to smile, because it meant Shizuru was human after all. "Is trouble what you want?"

It would be so easy to say yes. To nod her head and tell Shizuru that she wanted Searrs or First District to come storming in here so that she could knock some heads together and feel better about anything. It would be another bandage – not actually solving anything at all.

"No," Natsuki whispered. She looked down at her hands, flexing them and wishing her element into existence. She missed the guns and their comforting weight. She missed a lot of things about that time that she never thought she would. "That would be a foolish thing to want."

Her expression remained closed, but Shizuru nodded her agreement. She turned back to staring out over the bay and clasped her hands behind her back. Her dress ripped in the slight breeze and Natsuki exhaled quietly – it was a welcome reprieve. "You want to ask me something."

"How did you know?" Natsuki asked.

Shizuru's smile was slow and easy, even if she did not turn to look at Natsuki as she spoke. "Natsuki has … ways of doing things when something is bothering her." She tapped her chin and tilted her head slightly towards her right. "Or at least I think she does."

Natsuki's cheeks burned with indignation and she put her hands on her hips and scowled. "Fine then," she replied, turning around. She was trying desperately to keep the annoyance from her voice, because she was going to have to spit out the question regardless. "I have tells."

"You do," Shizuru agreed.

"I don't want them," Natsuki shook her head and gestured towards the hill. "It's hot, let's go inside, have something cold to drink and I'll ask you then."

Quicker than Natsuki could register it, a hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. She turned, to see Shizuru staring at the ground, her eyes closed. "I would rather you ask me now so that we can go home and not have it taint that place too."

She did not want to do this here. She did not want to do it anywhere, but not here especially. Natsuki bit her lip and jammed her hands into her cut-off pockets. "I…"

"You want to know if there is any truth in Suzushiro's words from that day," Shizuru wouldn't look at her. Her gaze was fixed on the ground now, her hair falling around her eyes and her voice unreadable. Natsuki wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. She wanted to tell Shizuru that they couldn't talk about this hear – that people might hear. That they couldn't be seen to be like _that_ or else people would talk.

What does it matter, the voice in her head nagged. She knew that Shizuru would not care. She had long-since made it clear to Natsuki that this was how she was. It was wrong, maybe, but Natsuki found herself far beyond caring. She just wanted to know what Shizuru had done it.

"No," Natsuki said. She shook her head violently. "We were _dead_, Shizuru. Dead!" She looked away. "I died thinking that you had – that you had..." she trailed off, trying not to think about what it really meant. To have had Shizuru do that to her was impossible – the most painfully sweet betrayal of the entire carnival. Nagi would be so proud.

She wanted to spit on the memory, but Shizuru was a lady and such things were never done around ladies in the movies Mai had made her sit through.

"I did it," Shizuru whispered, her cheeks bright red with the heat of the day and the shame of it l. "It was cold that night," she trailed off and seemed to collect herself, her grip on Natsuki's arm white-knuckled. It was in that moment that Natsuki realized that still, even after it was all over; she was Shizuru's one tether to reality. "And I – I couldn't get you to stop shaking. I didn't want to call a doctor or take you to a hospital; I know how much you hate them. I kissed you in your sleep, I lay beside you, I held you and I let myself – just for the briefest of instants when my world was crumbling – think of what could be."

"It still… it still could be," Natsuki exhaled. "I… I just needed to know."

"You thought that I'd raped you."

The accusation hung empty across the hot summer street, a gallows walk nearly completed.

She had no response or defense for that. She hung her head and closed her eyes and desperately wished to vanish again into nothingness. "I don't know what I thought," Natsuki grit her teeth and pulled her hand away from Shizuru. "I was sick! Suzushiro and Kikugawa were right there and she… and she…"

She didn't flinch when Shizuru pulled her close and held her there, fingers tracing patterns down her back and soothing away the fear once more. Natsuki couldn't help it, it was so easy to fall back into that mindset – the fear and the feeling of utter violation. "I cannot lie to you, Natsuki," Shizuru's whisper was hot in Natsuki's ear. "If I had caved to such desires, I would tell you and then I would leave this place – for I would not deserve you."

Natsuki raised a shaking hand and placed her hand on Shizuru's back. "Thank you," she whispered.

And somehow, that was enough.

* * *

AN: Finally, an update. I was recently re-reading this and digging through old WIPs. There's only about three or four more planned parts to this now so I've made it my goal to complete it.


	13. Act Five, Scene One

**Moments in Time – Act Five, Scene One**

**dé·tente** - [dey-tahnt; _French_ dey-tahnt] - _noun_

_a relaxing of tension_, especially between nations, as by negotiations or agreements.

_Origin:_1680-90; French _détente,_Old French _destente,_ derivative of _destendre_ to relax, equivalent to _des-_dis- +_tendre_ to stretch

* * *

The summer waned into an unseasonably warm autumn and they went back to school following the summer vacation without much fuss. Natsuki's grades had improved enough to prevent catastrophe, but it was a well-known fact that her delinquent tendencies were going to do her a disservice as she attempted to sit college entrance examinations. Mai teased her about it, her smile curling at her lips and an endearing twinkle in her eye as she did so.

It wasn't easy to talk to Mai, to talk to anyone really. Shizuru was like pulling teeth, and as she had confessed nearly three months before to Mai, they still didn't really talk. Still it seemed that they'd reached a period of détente – they were no longer at war with what had happened, but rather learning how to live with their shared past.

Those harrowing days were a scar upon their very souls, cutting so deeply that it almost at times seemed like there was no way to stop the bleeding. They were dead and then they were alive again – and they all remembered what had happened in between. Natsuki still could not look Kikugawa in the face, and she wasn't on speaking terms with many of the other former HiME.

There was only Mai, Mai the maker and breaker of the universe. Mai, who had somehow become the only person in Natsuki's life that made any semblance of sense.

"You're not going to have to repeat?" Mai asked as Natsuki trailed her finger across the board outside their classroom where exam results were posted. She had managed to scrape by at the end of the previous school year, with both Mai and Shizuru tutoring her on the concepts that she'd yet to grasp, but this year was considered the real test. The school had already informed her that they would be monitoring her marks closely to ensure that she continued to improve. Her truancy had to be made an example of, and if Natsuki did not improve her marks and finish in the top half of her class during the new school year, they would not hesitate to hold her back once more.

The mark under her finger was decent. A seventy-nine put her well towards the top of the list. Mai had only managed an eighty-two. Natsuki let out a breath of air she hadn't been aware that she was holding and shook her head, turning and smiling at Mai as Mai found her own name and wiped her hand across her forehead in an overly-dramatic gesture of relief.

"No," she said shortly, and moved away from the crowd. There were people in this throng of students who had lost those closest to them because of her actions, and she wanted nothing to do with them. They saw her as stand-offish, but Natsuki knew better.

The undercurrent of resentment of her continued presence at the school did not go unnoticed. The entirety of the student body had left the school not long after the Searrs attack and that god-awful carnival starting in earnest. Natsuki knew that the only reason that her presence was tolerated was because of the wealth of a slush fund that First District had in place for just such purposes. She'd followed the money for years, after all. She'd seen the accounts.

Mai followed Natsuki across the courtyard over towards the canteen. Natsuki had her eye on a can of cold coffee and Mai and her home-cooked meals could stuff it. She wasn't hungry anyway. "Why are you so angry all the time, Natsuki?"

The question came unbidden and Natsuki didn't have an answer to it.

It stuck in the back of her throat like the way she'd frozen up in that burnt-out church, her lips pressing against Shizuru's and her ears still ringing from the bell that had fallen on her. She couldn't answer it, because the answer wasn't good enough. It would never be good enough and Natsuki knew it. There was no truth in what she could say to Mai, because Mai would never understand.

She had had too much love in her heart – all that was important to her faded into nothing and still she could fight.

Natsuki hated her for it.

"Nosy," she muttered, inserting her coins into the vending machine in the canteen with deliberate slowness as she tried to ignore Mai's inquisitive stare. One coin, and then another, sliding off her thumb and into the slot; tumbling towards what was sure to be a good can of coffee.

Mai wouldn't relent though, leaning against the side of the vending machine and watching as Natsuki pointedly ignored her. Her arms were folded over her ridiculous chest and she was glaring as only a pesky do-gooder could glare. Natsuki could sense her disapproval, read it in her very posture and she knew that she could not get away from it so easily. Mai was the one who had been there, after all, when her world had come apart at the seams. Mai had been the one to pick her up and tell her that maybe it could be okay – and maybe it was okay if the student council president was _like that_.

_She's supposed to be the easy one to talk to_, Natsuki thought for what felt like the hundredth time. Mai was hard in a different sort of way, because Mai's problems were so simple in comparison. Mai had not killed so many and done it without remorse. Mai's only sin had been to be trapped in the middle of two love stories that were far from conventional. Tate had been distant recently, and Mai's little brother practically a ghost.

They all had scars that had to heal – and the only way to make it better was to actually say what was wrong.

She had a block in her head about it. It was the sort of thing that had to be brought down slowly and deliberately. She had to beat it into submission – to take it and own it. She couldn't be scared and yet she had to be scared. Mai couldn't know what was going on inside her head right now and Mai was always disgustingly perceptive about just such things.

She fed the last of her coins in and listened to the vending machine beep its approval before pressing the button for her selection. There was the tell-tale clunk of the can falling down and Natsuki retrieved it and turned to face Mai with a sheepish smile across her face. She had to fake it until she made it.

Forward was all. She had to press forward until she could actually say what it was that she was feeling. "I'm not angry," she explained, her voice quiet. She watched as Mai's eyes narrowed in accusation and gave the smallest shrug of her shoulders as Mai's scowl turned disapproving. "The people here… they all lost someone… this school is run by _them. _These are their children; they all lost their parent because of me."

"I thought that …" Mai trailed off, glancing around them.

Natsuki opened her coffee, listening to the loud hiss and click as the can opened.

"Forget it," Natsuki said as Mai moved to pull her in closer. "We can't talk about that here, anyway." She sidestepped around Mai's outstretched hand and inclined her head towards the garden where this whole charade had begun. Go back to the beginning they would all say, what is the root of the problem.

The root of the problem was Shizuru – the infuriating woman whose soul was as corrupted as Natsuki's own. The root of the problem lay not in her ability to comprehend the situation, but rather the scar across her very being.

Mai followed her wordlessly, her lunchbox still wrapped in a handkerchief and clutched in her hand. Natsuki wasn't used to Mai following her without a word, but it almost made sense. She had answers to questions that Mai probably never thought she'd get a chance to ask.

The sea of students parted for them almost effortlessly. She was no Moses, and Natsuki knew that they shied away from her because of who she was and what she represented to the school. She had a reputation that she would never shake in this town and it was because of who she was and who her mother had been.

Natsuki bit her lip and turned towards the gardens that bordered the director's home. The puppet was long gone, but the gardens remained under Himeno's care, and there they flourished as though nothing had ever happened in the space that they protected. Natsuki wanted to dig them up and salt the earth. This place was cursed, nothing should grow here – for if one were to sew the teeth of dragons in the ground at the land of Fuuka, Natsuki doubted that they would grow warriors.

There was nothing growing here but scared little girls who could never rally around each other and their fearless leader to create a brave new identity for this accursed land.

The flower garden was beautiful, full of late summer blooms.

"This is strangely full-circle," Natsuki commented to Mai, hear hand reaching out to crush the flower that had the audacity to bloom before her. She waited for Shizuru's voice to stop her like it did every time she dreamed of this moment.

Mai glanced towards the gazebo, and headed in its direction, "You shouldn't kill the headmistress' flowers."

The can of coffee in Natsuki's fingers burned. It was so cold, ice against the heat of the day. Natsuki turned and followed Mai, the flower left intact and growing upwards and into the light. Maybe she was like a flower – rather than a dragon's tooth. Flowers take time to develop, and she didn't spring fully grown out of the ground. No, that was reserved for the stories that Shizuru told her from her Greek classes.

They sat in silence, Mai starting in on her lunch and Natsuki drinking her coffee. The bay looked beautiful today, every day the bridge gets closer to completion and Natsuki wants to go blow it up again. If it stays unfinished, maybe they have a chance at survival.

With it came new people into this city and she was so afraid of their presence. She didn't want to be locked up or poked and prodded – and people know it was her. There wasn't some sort of collective amnesia that had gripped the entire school and to some extent the city as well. Everyone knew that Mai and her friends were connected to what happened here, everyone knew and someone was sure to talk.

Natsuki's money was on Suzushiro, as she couldn't keep her goddamn mouth closed anyway.

"Hey… Natsuki?" Mai asked after a period of oppressive silence and thoughts that Natsuki found far more troubling than she cared to admit.

"Mn?" Natsuki set down her coffee.

Mai's expressive eyes met her own and they seemed to soften there, a kindness lingered in Mai that the carnival had well and truly crushed out of most everyone else who had participated in it. Mai was their world-maker, their savior. It almost made sense that she would be the kindest soul that Natsuki could say she knew.

"Why are you so angry all the time?"

Oh. This again.

Natsuki scowled at Mai, but Mai just smirked right back at her. _Evil, nosy, overly friendly, big-boobed…. _ She sighed and shook her head. They had to talk about these things, she knew it. First District had offered her someone to talk to – a brain doctor and Natsuki didn't trust people like that. All she had were the people in her life, those who had been through what she had been through.

Maybe this was the opening that she so desperately wanted.

"I shoulda known…" Natsuki muttered, shifting to lean against one of the pillars that dotted the gazebo. "When I as a kid, I had this perfect childhood, you know? My mom was a scientist – she worked for _them_, yes, but she wasn't absent or anything. She was just my mom. My dad worked a lot too, but I had a happy family…" She hung her head and looked at her hands, thinking of her elements. "They found out that I was a HiME and they wanted to see what I could do and my mother… my mother was going to go along with it. Nagi told me."

"Did it ever occur to you that he was lying to you?" Mai asked, and Natsuki shook her head. Nagi hadn't been lying, because she'd seen the paperwork and the documentation. It had been a trump card to cripple her, to ensure the victory to the one winner that the Obsidian Lord had been certain he could defeat.

Natsuki's bangs fell into her eyes and she shook her head. "I… had known it for a little while then. I'd been trying not to think about it, like… denial?"

"There's been a lot of that going around," Mai muttered.

"She didn't-" Natsuki started.

Mai gave her an odd look, inclining her head to the side and giving Natsuki a searching look that spoke volumes as to how little Mai believed that. Natsuki didn't know how tell her.

"And then Fujino happened?" Mai asked, finally dropping the title that Shizuru had held during her hears at school (much to a certain small-minded-dictator's chagrin) . It felt strange to hear Mai say Shizuru's name without the respect of the title of student council president. Had things really changed that much? It was a new year, almost half-way through one even. Shizuru was gone from this place, escaped to an apartment in the city and a university that was bought and paid for by the very people who had driven her to the brink of her sanity.

Natsuki nodded. She rubbed the back of her neck and chuckled awkwardly. "Yeah," she whispered. "We finally talked about that night, Mai."

A contemplative frown drifted across Mai's face in that moment of absolution, and she shook her head after a moment and ran a hand through her hair. "Are you okay?" she asked quietly, and it was the quiet and almost-broken tone that set Natsuki on edge. What had Mai heard? Natsuki hadn't mentioned anything about that horrible night to anyone other than Mai, and she'd left out many of the details to save her friend having to cope with the emotional trauma that she herself was going through.

She smiled then, and she knew that it reached her eyes. It was the one gesture that she could think of that would let Mai know that she truly was alright. Her face sort of hurt, smiling like that, but as Mai reached out and grasped Natsuki's hand, it felt like it was worth it. "This is a time for healing," Natsuki whispered. "You said that… before."

"And I believed it, before," Mai agreed. She smiled back at Natsuki and it was clear that she had not had as much luck in her own personal quest for absolution with Tate and with her brother. "I'm glad for you."

"Thanks," Natsuki intoned. Her cheeks were burning, almost with what felt like shame. She was moving forward when people seemed to be stagnant around her and she didn't know how to make it better.

In the distance, the school's bell tolled the lunch hour complete and Natsuki picked up her can. She didn't want to leave Mai, but she didn't want to be thrown out of school either. Shizuru wouldn't seem to care, but Natsuki could see her disapproving eyes in her head and she knew that she had to go – she could not linger on the outskirts as she once had. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Sure," Mai replied, and Natsuki knew that maybe this was another step that had to happen. Maybe they all had to start talking to each other in order to understand what had been stolen from them.

"Tomorrow then."

* * *

AN: the story that Natsuki references with the sewing of the dragon's teeth is the story of the origin of the city of Thebes - Cadmus is urged by Athena to sew the teeth of a serpent (sometimes recorded as a dragon in British translations) and from it springs fully grown warriors. Cadmus throws a precious stone into the middle of them, and they all kill each other until only five survive - these five go on to help him found Thebes.


	14. Act Five, Scene Two

**Moments in Time – Act Five, Scene Two**

**dé·tente** - [dey-tahnt; _French_ dey-tahnt] - _noun_

_a relaxing of tension_, especially between nations, as by negotiations or agreements.

_Origin:_1680-90; French _détente,_Old French _destente,_ derivative of _destendre_ to relax, equivalent to _des-_dis- +_tendre_ to stretch

* * *

As the summer faded, the days seemed to stretch on forever. Natsuki climbed the hill to her apartment every day with a heavy heart. To go home meant the pressing silences of that empty apartment – the same as it had always been, completely and utterly devoid of life. Shizuru was at school now, further into the city, she didn't have a lot of time to come back to her own personal hell. Natsuki didn't blame her for staying away. Natsuki couldn't help but feel lonely as time crawled by and she puzzled her way through supplemental mathematics to make up for the class time that she'd missed and the concepts she still had yet to grasp.

She dropped her pen down onto the table in front of her. This was getting her nowhere and she had questions that she could not answer or look up on the Internet. First District had presented her with a laptop computer all of her own without preamble when she'd moved in, and Shizuru had nudged Natsuki and smiled. "I guess this means you won't be needing to use mine anymore," she had said with a teasing lint her voice. Natsuki had wanted to tell her that it wasn't her laptop and the unmonitored connection to the outside world that had kept her coming back. It had been her, always her.

Natsuki rummaged in her schoolbag and unearthed her phone. It was early still, Shizuru would not be asleep. She might not have even eaten dinner yet. She dialed the number and waited, almost hesitantly, for Shizuru to pick up.

The steady pulse of the dial tone in her ear seemed to reverberate throughout Natsuki's empty apartment. She listened to it as it filled the room, echoing and echoing until it suddenly stopped, and Natsuki's world grew brighter once more. Shizuru's greeting sounded tired and oddly canned as it traveled across the city. "Hello?"

"It's me," Natsuki said. Her voice sounded deafening as the silence pressed around her. "Have you had dinner yet?"

Shizuru made a noise to the negative, and Natsuki brightened considerably. She leaned forward, fingers reaching for a stack of papers on the far end of the table. Take-out menus, dutifully collected by Nao in a fit of goodwill as she'd destroyed Natsuki's previous collection of them, were stacked there from the last time Natsuki had had a flight of similar takeout-wanting fancy. "I could get some food and bring it over?" she offered.

"That… that sounds nice," Shizuru agreed. She paused for a moment and then added, because she was definitely far more evil than she let on, "Please tell them to hold my mayonnaise."

Perhaps it was a testament to the ease at which their communication had come recently, because Natsuki did not feel compelled to do much other than shake her head at Shizuru's teasing. It didn't get the rise out of her that it once had. Maybe she'd finally started to relax enough to take the joke as it was offered, without a fuss. Shizuru had a good sense of humor, she knew how to laugh and how to make others around her laugh as well. Natsuki thought a lot of people missed that about her, thinking her aloof and snobbish.

It was a crying shame, really.

"Don't say things like that," Natsuki chuckled and sat back, the menu for the place she wanted to go now successfully retrieved. "Are you okay with the noodle shop by your place?" she asked. Shizuru loved their soups and Natsuki could usually convince her to eat some of the chicken out of her own fried noodles.

"That sounds good," Shizuru agreed. Natsuki could hear the smile in her voice and she felt herself grinning at the empty apartment before her. It was foolish to put hope in such things, but she knew that Shizuru had survived on that hope alone for years. It didn't seem fair that she herself should not have to experience some of that same want and desperate moments "I should expect you in … say half an hour?"

Natsuki glanced at the clock on the wall, nearly out of view around the corner into her kitchen. "I think so," she agreed.

They lapsed into silence then, the simple sound of someone else breathing on the other end of the line enough to make Natsuki feel more grounded than she'd felt all day. The conversation with Mai was still raw in her mind. Maybe they were working on healing - maybe this was part of their penance for their sins. They were forever trapped with the burden of what was done, what was seen. She was entitled to be angry all the time if that was what she so wished, and Mai could get stuffed if she thought that Natsuki would stop hating the people who had done this to them just because their lives were better now.

Mai, after all, had not been robbed of her childhood by those bastards.

So maybe they were a work in progress. Natsuki's stomach growled and Shizuru let out the most unladylike sound. "Natsuki's stomach says she should hang up."

Natsuki's cheeks burned bright red and she could not help herself, "I-idiot! How on earth did you hear that!"

"Natsuki should hang up now," Shizuru laughed and Natsuki wanted to throttle her in a completely good-natured sort of way. "I'll see you in a bit."

"Bye then," Natsuki trailed off, the words hanging into silence as a dial tone met her ears. She'd been hung up on. Figured. Shizuru sometimes liked to be direct like that, and it always irritated Natsuki to no end.

She gathered her homework and shoved it back into her schoolbag, pulling the shoulder strap out from where she'd tucked it inside the bag to keep it out of the way. The nights were still not quite growing colder, and she didn't bother to do much else other than pull on her sneakers before leaving. Shizuru had sweaters if she got cold.

The walk to Shizuru's apartment, far closer to the center of the city and to the university, was not a long one. Natsuki knew the route like the back of her hand; she knew the old women who liked the bench by the corner of the park, and the street musician who always serenaded her with his violin when she walked past. She flipped a coin into his case without paying much attention, and hung a left, and turned down an alley that would take her to the street where the noodle shop was.

It was easy when walking like this to get lost in her own reflections. The entirety of this city was destroyed and made anew, and there were places, like the dark recesses of this alleyway where that was more apparent than in most places. Natsuki hated that the city still stood at all, that they could not escape this place even with the blood money of their enemies.

Natsuki kicked a crumpled up ball of paper and scowled at the ground, thinking of what Mai had said the day before. She hadn't known about her mother's involvement with First District, not from the start. But as it became more and more obvious, she'd chosen to ignore the facts. Mai had brought those same dark thoughts of that dark time to the forefront of Natsuki's mind.

Nagi hadn't been lying, and the knot in Natsuki's stomach only seemed to grow.

She scowled, finding herself once more in that same headspace, where she'd been inclinded to believe Suzushiro's accusations, despite the fact that they made no sense. She hated being filled with doubt and it was the loathing of that feeling that made Natsuki's resolve tighten around the knot in her stomach. She would not let this get to her.

The timing wasn't right.

It seemed only natural that she would make her way down this alleyway. The natrually progression of finding herself trapped in a dark space alone and isolated from the rest of the world. This moment of utter solitude, despite standing between two crowded streets, this had been what Nagi had wanted for her. He'd wanted her alone, to play the Obsidian Lord's game. They were just that - powerless against their greater purpose. She had never been set to be the victor, no matter his empty promises.

No one but Mai had stood a chance.

Natsuki clenched her hand into a fist and tried to stop it from shaking. The one thing that she was glad about was the fact that Nagi seemed to have vanished right along with the school's director following them tumbling back into life once more. She didn't think that she could stomach the thought of seeing the bastard for any longer than absolutely necessary. As it was she struggled with Mikoto's brother still breathing air - but she wasn't about to take away Mikoto's happiness any more than she would take away her own. He had been corrupted, same as the rest of them.

"Watch where you're going!" someone shouted up ahead, and Natsuki glanced over to where the noise had come from and started. She'd come to the end of the alley, already stumbling forward into the light once more. Across the street from her and holding two grocery bags was none-other than Suzushiro Haruka, looking rather irate and about to spit fire at the salary man who had accidentally run into her.

There was a strong part of Natsuki that urged her in that moment to back away slowly and pretend that she had never seen the former executive director of the school's student council. She wanted nothing to with Suzushiro, and she very much doubted that Suzushiro wanted anything to do with her. The conflict that they had come into with each other had been entirely Suzushiro's fault.

Maybe they all could have handled it better, but Suzushiro shouldn't have said anything to begin with. It wasn't her place.

Maybe she was trying to be a better person.

She crossed the street and bent to pick up a fallen can of soup. "Here," she said, offering her hand to the firey woman. There was trepidation in her every moment, and as Suzushiro stared at Natsuki's hand like she had something catching, Natsuki tried to swallow whatever pride she still possessed. This was what the good and right thing to do felt like. It didn't feel good or pretty. It felt like shit and she knew that there was very little that she would be able to do to change Suzushiro's mind. She was just one person, and there was only so much that could be done for someone who suffered from the terrible disease of bigotry that Shizuru's former classmate suffered from.

"Kuga!" Suzushiro started, finally coming to her senses and reaching out for Natsuki's hand. Their palms met and the sweaty feeling of utter personal loathing couldn't help but pass across Natsuki's mind. As much as she wanted nothing to do with this woman, this woman thought her no better than a dog. The situation was bound to be as awkward as possible. "Didn't see you," Suzushiro muttered as she bent to gather her groceries.

Natsuki forced a smile onto her face, even though she knew it was weak and certainly didn't meet her eyes. "I was just passing and saw you fall. It seemed polite to help."

Suzushiro's eyes narrowed and she glanced around the street. "Where's Fujino?" she demanded.

"Home, I suppose," Natsuki said. She shrugged to emphasize her point and held out the can she'd picked up. "We don't do everything together."

"As well you shouldn't – that crazy woman is a bad confluence on you, Kuga! Best stay away from her sort of people altogether. You'll probably get further in life." Natsuki was pretty sure that the boisterous woman meant 'influence' rather than what she'd said, but she wasn't about to say anything to her. That was Kikugawa's job and she had no interest in playing second wheel to that relationship.

"I do what I please," Natsuki said shortly. She took a step away from Suzushiro and shook her head almost sadly, looking at the girl before her and wondering how she had ever come between Shizuru and herself. It was almost incomprehensible that Suzushiro had been able to push Shizuru's buttons so easily as to send her down a path of desperate madness. It was almost alien, really, and Natsuki really didn't understand how something like this could have possibly ever happened.

Maybe Shizuru held the answer – she would have to ask her at some point, because it didn't make any sense that she would be so scared to show herself to Natsuki as a HiME. They could have made an effort to collaborate with Mai – to do something. They had _died._ And now they were alive again.

"And you assume quite a lot for a woman in a similar situation," Natsuki added, as Suzushiro puffed out her chest like an annoyed and brightly colored bird. It was strange to see her out of a school uniform and in a simple jacket and dark denim that looked to be far more expensive than Natsuki could ever hope to afford. It was almost bizarre. How had a girl like Suzushiro ended up at the school when she had no connection to the carnival at all? Her only connection was Kikugawa. Natsuki's eyes narrowed and she scowled at Suzushiro. "Shizuru is my best friend, why would I stop seeing her?"

Suzushiro shrugged in response, grocery bags crinkling loudly as she did so. Natsuki's scowl deepened.

"It's your choice what you do with a woman like her," Suzushiro replied in a far more diplomatic matter than Natsuki could have possibly ever hoped to hear from her. It hurt, deep within her, to hear someone else call out Shizuru for being who she was. It had always been an unspoken understanding between the two of them – Shizuru had never outright said it and Natsuki had always known it to be true.

What she hadn't known was how much Shizuru hated herself for that aspect of her being. Natsuki didn't much care about it. It was just another part of Shizuru that she'd come to feel strongly about. It meant that she never had to feel like Kikugawa, because that option was always there. Her love was not one-sided and full of hatred and bigotry on one side.

"If that is how you will repay a good deed," Natsuki said. She turned to leave and felt the knot of tension in between her shoulder blades throb in pain. She had to stop doing this – she had to stop talking and thinking about the past as much as she was these days. It wasn't good to dwell upon events that she could not change. Wasn't that what they told people in situations that were similar to her own? _Grant me the courage to understand that sometimes things cannot change and all that I can change is myself?_ She remembered it from her childhood – when her father had tried to impart his western religion and belief system upon her.

"Kuga, wait," Suzushiro apparently understood the concept of saving face. Natsuki couldn't help but be slightly impressed with the woman, as she had had a pretty low opinion of her since long before the carnival and her true nature coming right and forward to the forefront of the conversation. She was just a small minded dictator. The sort of person who could never be happy save when they were controlling a situation entirely out of their control.

Natsuki turned to stare down Shizuru's former rival with a cool and disinterested look across her face. "Mn?" she grunted, trying not to sound too interested in what Suzushiro might have to say.

The woman puffed out her cheeks and exhaled loudly, before gathering both her grocery bags into one hand and holding out her hand once more. Natsuki stared at it, and then glanced up at Suzushiro. "This is a new beginning," the woman explained. "I have my opinions regarding your friendships with that crazy tea drinking maniac, but that is mine to own. You are your own person, Kuga. I may not adhere to your judgment but I can respect it."

"Thanks…" Natsuki trailed off. She stared at the proffered hand for another long and drawn out moment. To take it meant to admit that there was a flaw in her logic with regards to Shizuru, which she knew that there was not. She could not admit defeat so easily, but she could still save face with one of the ones who had been hurt by what had happened. "I think," she added, muttering the words to herself as she took Suzushiro's hand.

"Yukino says you're back in school," Suzushiro said conversationally, shaking Natsuki's hand vigorously before dropping it and clapping Natsuki on the back. The blow wasn't' particularly hard, but Natsuki still winced. The woman packed a punch – that much was for sure. "Good for you, academics are the most important part of our lives before university."

"Thank you, Suzu-" Natsuki started, but she was waved off.

"Oh - call me Haruka, Suzushiro is my father."

Natsuki nodded slowly, "Haruka then."

It was an alien feeling, and one that she didn't like. Natsuki bit the inside of her cheek and tried to avoid thinking about the fact that she had just addressed the woman had essentially condemned her and Shizuru both to death so familiarly.

"I should be going," Haruka said. She glanced down at the bags and smiled sheepishly at Natsuki. "Thanks for helping me out with this."

"It was no problem…" Natsuki trailed off, watching as the former executive director had already brushed past her and was headed down the street and away from Natsuki's direction. She shook her head and let her go. There was no reason to chase after ghosts of the past.


End file.
